106: No One Saw A Thing and The Doorstep Murder
Sundance continues staking out space in the prestige-true-crime space with No One Saw A Thing, a six-parter on the killing of Ken Rex McElroy in Skidmore, MO in 1981 and what that's meant to the town since then...but although it's well made, Allison and I agreed that both-sides-ism and a certain cynical willingness to let correlation be causation undermined the series overall. Are you better off with MacLean's In Broad Daylight?
Another small town struggles with the legacy of an unsolved case in BBC Scotland's The Doorstep Murder, a podcast series from last year that surfaces the story of Alistair Wilson's mysterious 2004 murder. The Beeb pedigree, and presenter Fiona Walker's authoritative accent, lulled us for a while into thinking the podcast was good storytelling, but alas, this story too is undermined by self-indulgent tape and nothingburger interview questions we're beyond tired of. Two good stories, both marred by narrative choices, in The Blotter Presents, Episode 106.
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SHOW NOTES
- No One Saw A Thing: https://www.sundancetv.com/shows/no-one-saw-a-thing
- The Doorstep Murder: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/the\_doorstep\_murder\_alistair\_wilson
- Allison Lowe Huff's author page at MHZ Choice: https://mhzchoiceblog.com/author/alhuff/page/1/
- My review of In Broad Daylight at Best Evidence (free to all subscribers!): https://blotterpresents.substack.com/p/in-broad-daylight-leavenworth-kim
Special Guest: Allison Lowe Huff.