The Four Seasons season 2 has had a great run on Netflix since its release on May 28, when it debuted at #1 in the service’s top 10 list. It has stayed on top for nearly a week, but now, it’s been dethroned by something new.
That would be the new True Crime documentary series Instadocs: Alex Murdaugh, Unconvicted. I thought Instadocs may have to do with some sort of Instagram-based crime, but that’s not what it is. Rather, Instadocs is a new experiment from Netflix that creates very short looks at recent crime cases and stories.
In this case, that has produced a 30-minute episode on Alex Murdaugh, who just had his double murder conviction overturned as recently as May 13, not even a month ago. Netflix previously covered the Murdaugh murders in a True Crime series spanning two full seasons, one focused on the murders, the other on the trial. Now, this Instadoc comes along for a trial development. Here, that’s the verdict being overturned due to jury interference, where a new trial may take place within a year.
The idea here is that this will be a frequently running series that tracks high-profile developments like this, obviously in short form, and meant to be watched quickly and casually, the way you might listen to one-off crime podcasts. The show will “move at the speed of each real-life story and arrive at the height of the conversation.” Hopefully, they get all the facts right. Given that these lists are done by watch time, it is impressive that a show that is merely one episode and 30 minutes long right now is #11. We’ll see how long that lasts.
As for The Four Seasons, there is no renewal for season 3 yet, as it’s very early, and that did not happen ahead of time. At the end of season 1 (spoilers), the show lost star Steve Carell, but continues on with actors like Tina Fey, Will Forte and the omnipresent Colman Domingo, who has recently starred in Euphoria and Michael and is about to be seen in Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day. And he’s had not one but two Best Actor Oscar nominations in the past few years. A wild career this man has.
The Boroughs is continuing to impress. It debuted a long while back on May 21, and still holds the #4 spot. It too has not been renewed for a second season yet, and it seems like it wants one, given that it is not pitched as a miniseries. Still, it’s too early to read anything into that, and I would guess that if it asks for one, it will have one.
I guess I’ll check out this Instadoc to see how this format will work. I’m curious how often these will be released, and how high on the top 10 list they will land when they come in.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.