A new documentary revisits the Steubenville rape case. What is it trying to say?

It's yet another take on the rise and fall of Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, so of course I had to invite Stephanie Early Green back to talk about The Inventor. Neither of us can ever resist variations on this story...but does the Alex Gibney documentary make too many allowances for Holmes's initial good intentions? Should it have been a limited series instead of a two-hour film? And how does Holmes even manage to WALK contrivedly?

Later, we look at a miniseries from Investigation Discovery on the Oakland County (MI) child abductions. It's a wild series of interconnected cases that took place where Stephanie grew up...but it's got a bunch of extra (in several senses) elements that took away from the story. Bothersome theremins, obvious questions, and mysterious motivations abound in The Blotter Presents, Episode 089.

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Special Guest: Stephanie Green.

ITV's popular three-parter brings its bracing lack of contrived melodrama to Acorn.

Another look at the case Serial made super-famous, plus a podcast about a predator guru Adnan Syed's case is back in the headlines (if we can say it's ever really left, post-Serial), and back in the true-crime-review discussion with HBO's four-part series The Case Against Adnan Syed. Eve Batey joins me to talk about the Amy Berg-directed docuseries, which, while it's well made, seemed to have a number of loose ends and missed opportunities. And it really isn't about the case against Adnan...but should it be? It isn't the case for Serial and Reddit sleuths, either...but should it be that, too/instead?

Later, we go back to the middle of last year for ESPN's podcast "season" on Bikram Yoga's eponymous founder, who's apparently also a huckster, an intellectual-property thief, and a serial rapist. What is it about certain kinds of "belief communities" that allows a predator to flourish? Why is this story arc so disturbingly familiar? And can we add "co-founding the man bun" to our list of grievances against Bikram? All these questions and more in the latest The Blotter Presents.

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Special Guest: Eve Batey.

Leaving Neverland is the HBO doc everyone's talking about, and Piper Weiss is back to discuss it. We had our problems with it (the length, the score) but we had things we admired about it too (the room it left Robson and Safechuck to feel however they needed to about Michael Jackson, even to miss him), even as we wished someone would make MJ: Made In America and take on the larger cultural phenomenon that was the King Of Pop. Later, I interview Skye Borgman about the doc everyone was talking about EARLIER in the year, Abducted In Plain Sight, from how she found the story to how she managed the re-enactments to what other true-crime documentaries were her touchstones. It's a difficult but worthwhile what-the-hell-were-the-parents-thinking duo of properties in The Blotter Presents, Episode 087.

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Special Guest: Piper Weiss.

Sundance's four-part series on Tony and Susan Alamo's Christian-cult empire is solid and familiar...but is it TOO familiar?

Thirteen incarcerated men at Pendleton Correctional Facility collaborate with each other and director Madeleine Sackler on the stories of...well, their stories.

The controversial Oscar-nominated short raises questions about an entire genre.

Kevin Smokler returns to discuss Joseph Wambaugh's canonical account(s) of the murder of Ian Campbell On the Rushmore of true-crime classics, there's one face Kevin and I hadn't contemplated yet: Joseph Wambaugh's The Onion Field, which narrates the fateful kidnapping of LAPD officers Ian Campbell and Karl Hettinger, the murder of Campbell, and the precursors and aftermaths of that night in the onion field in 1963. It's a quick read whose influences you can see in Ellroy, Mailer and others, but may have suffered from being written while various court cases were still in process...and from not including a notorious police department's history as context.

Later in the podcast, we talk about the 1979 film version of the book starring Jon Savage, Ted Danson, Franklyn Seales, James Woods, and a parade of Hey, It's That Guy!s. Wambaugh wrote the screenplay, and the things that make the book a standout don't always translate...but sometimes they're improved by excellent acting. Should you read the book first, or see the movie? Do you need to consume both? And does the ghost of Capote hover over everything that came after? Come for the discussion, stay for the DVD giveaway on The Blotter Presents, Episode 086.

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SHOW NOTES

Special Guest: Kevin Smokler.

The 2017 docu took Netflix by storm. Does it deliver on its promise, or should it push harder?