Cable > NBC
Jeffery Mingo | Homewood, IL USA | 07/09/2008
(3 out of 5 stars)
"I was expecting this to be as wonderful as "The New Detectives" or "Closed Case Files": programs on the cable networks. Instead this was just a dull episode of "Dateline." Worst of all, the narrator, a Mr. Morrison, has a voice so dull and and uninspired, it just boggles the mind. Do you remember when The Simpsons were watching a PBS fund-raiser and Homer just couldn't stand the boring comic that PBS hired? Well, that's what Mr. Morrison's voice sounded like. Ugh!
In some of those cable shows, you learn about new technologies that solve crimes. You grow from the program. That doesn't happen here. In one of the two episodes, the case is not cold: the murderer is just on the lam. In the other, one person knew the murder happened decades ago. The victim's father gives this crazy red herring about the KGB and then says, "Oh! I just knew the killer was that everyday person they found!" In the post-Columbine era, there is an awareness about the tragedy of bullying and how it leads to school violence. This work does nothing to condemn the murderer for calling his victim "a loser" and just seems to pass over a high school student that should have been deemed just as important as any other young person.
If NBC can't improve in this area, then folk will flock to the cable stations even more than they have been. I usually love the peacock network, but this was second-rate material without question."