Homicide: Hours to Kill (2017– ) User Reviews

excellent, but cut corners in production

[frieda-92366 · 10/10 · 30 November 2023]

I've watched hours and hours of true crime. This is one of the better series because the detectives that solved the crimes speak directly to the camera and give the highlights of the 24 hrs that comprised the victim's life just before their death. There is little reinactment, not too much blood, shows some home movies and photos of various involved persons, and they tell the story of the community. This is important because it helps unpack the mystery. The only problem is they would use the same scenes, like a bedroom with the bed made up, to typify a bedroom scene where the victim slept or was murdered. But they used the same exact bedspread (unusual pattern) and pillows and it was in fact just re-using the one shot in multiple episodes. Different victims, different years, different states, same bedroom. It would have been cheap and easy to change it up a little. And they would use the same shots of neighborhoods with the same gray and white houses. The stories were succinct, the detectives came across as honest and true, and the victims and sometimes the suspects were treated respectfully in the narratives. But after I saw the same exact settings over and over, it took away from the "documentary" they were supposedly creating. It didn't spoil the stories or annoy me to the point I stopped watching, but it was a bit of a stretch.