Innovation in true crime: generic transformation in documentary series

ABSTRACT

This discussion explores innovation in true crime programming on streaming platforms and on-demand catch up broadcast television services. Altered consumption habits from long form programming and binge viewing on streaming services has prompted innovations in factual content through docuseries. Commencing with Reality Television police procedurals such as the long running US series Cops ([1989–2023]. Cops. TV Series. Fox. 1989–2013, 2023. Paramount Network 2013–2020. Fox Nation 2021–2023), the true crime genre has expanded into long-form docuseries. This expansion coincides with streaming platforms that service contemporary consumption habits based on unscheduled, on-demand spectatorship practices. Underbelly ([2008–2022]. Underbelly. TV Series. Screentime; Nine Network) is an Australian true crime franchise and early innovator of true crime serialisation. Spanning both broadcast and streaming eras, Underbelly serves as a counterpoint in this discussion of innovations in long-form documentary serialisation in the Netflix programs, Making a Murderer ([2015–2018]. Making a Murderer. TV Series. Synthesis Films; Netflix) and The Staircase ([2004–2018]. The Staircase. TV Series. Canal+, Episodes 1–10. Netflix, Episodes 11–13). Discussion of each series reveals how narrative innovation functions as generic transformation in response to new television on-demand platforms and delivery modes.

KEYWORDS:

• True crime
• long-form documentary
• documentary series
• streaming disruption
• true crime dramatisation

Introduction

This discussion explores narrative innovation through true crime-based programming in the context of streaming platforms in contrast to on-demand, catch up broadcast television services. The article focuses on the legacy of long-form serialisation in reshaping episodic television drama since the late 1990s. More recently, long-form serialisation has been applied to factual and documentary content, developed in response to altered consumption habits, such as binge viewing promoted by streaming and on-demand television services.

True crime programming spans a wide spectrum of television content occurring on broadcast and cable networks and has had rapid take up on streaming services from Netflix to Amazon Prime Video. The true crime genre encompasses Reality TV formats, traditional documentary, through to tabloid journalism-based special event television and dramatised ‘inspired by true events’ series.

The Netflix true crime series Making a Murderer (2015–2018) and The Staircase (2004–2018) helped to redefine the genre by generating international appeal when they were promoted as marquee titles on the Netflix streaming platform. Making a Murderer is original content that was designed and produced specifically for Netflix. The Staircase was a documentary feature, made by the French broadcaster and cable provider Canal+ in 2004. It was then adapted into various news specials for US audiences before it was adapted into a 13-episode Netflix true crime series in 2018.

Occupying the dramatised end of the true crime spectrum is Channel Nine’s Underbelly (2008–2022), Australia’s longest running true crime franchise series. Underbelly is a multi-season anthology series that eschews any documentary treatment of its true crime events in favour of wholesale dramatisation. The context and longevity of the Underbelly franchise is particularly noteworthy given it commenced in 2008 just one year after Netflix launched its streaming service and seven years before Netflix was available in Australia.

Each of the above true crime-based series occupies different points in the spectrum spanning the true crime genre and reflects particular logics of their respective platforms in regard to narrative innovation. Together these programs provide insights into how true crime-based programming negotiates a factual quotient in their dramatic storytelling and evidence alternative approaches to adapting true crime events. True crime programming that originated on free-to-air broadcast channels in Australia continues to draw from investigative journalism or in the case of Underbelly, wholly dramatises the respective events underpinning each series. Meanwhile, international streaming platforms have adapted true crime series from a broadcaster like Canal+ or developed original programming as serialised documentary television known as ‘docuseries’.

By examining recent programs in the true crime genre and the extent to which they have employed narrative innovation, we can compare the different approaches between Australian broadcast and cable channels to international streaming and cable services. In this way, the genre of true crime offers insights into the respective logics issuing from broadcasting versus streaming platforms as they compete for ‘eyeball attention’ in a disrupted mediascape.

True crime expansion

True crime series have been traditionally associated with tabloid television formats premised on the promotion of lurid sensationalism. They include public service styled Reality shows like the UK’s Crimewatch that commenced in 1984, to long-running Reality TV series. The most enduring Reality TV true crime series remains the US series, Cops (1989–present) that continues with over 35 seasons. Other Reality style shows continue to be produced, such as the 23 season police procedural, The First 48 (2004–present) that concentrates on homicide cases in various US cities. Reflecting innovations derived from long-form narrative, however, true crime programming has been expanded and continues to diversify. Key to how true crime content is transforming is through its serialisation rather than one-off feature documentaries. This serialisation reflects streaming services’ responses to binge style, on-demand spectatorship practices that continue to redefine viewer consumption habits on web-based media platforms.

Definitions of true crime centre on the capturing and relaying of details of an actual criminal event. In Toward a Theory of True Crime Narratives: A Textual Analysis, Punnett (2018, 28) describes true crime as consisting of ‘nonfiction narratives of criminal events that actually happened’. Contemporary true crime series reflect how the treatment of true crime events covers a broad spectrum where the content is organised along more traditional documentary and factual lines through to docudrama adaptations and fully dramatised renderings.

The Australian true crime franchise series, Underbelly, represents the wholly dramatised end of the true crime spectrum recounting the events and figures from the Melbourne gangland killings that plagued the city between 1995 and 2004. Created in 2008 and aired on the free-to-air network, Channel Nine, Underbelly is a true crime series indicative of when television was dominated by broadcast networks. Since the first season in 2008, Underbelly has enjoyed popular and critical success becoming an anthology series with the most recent season, the aforementioned, Vanishing Act, produced in 2022.

Underbelly is premised on narrative principles, relying on tropes such as twists, red-herrings, revelations, and resolutions that operate in traditional fictional crime and mystery series. Each season is distinct and delivers narrative resolution. In Underbelly seasons 1–4, each series comprised 13 episodes, while seasons 5 and 6 consisted of 8 episodes. However, the latest 2022 season, Vanishing Act, broke ranks with the multi-episode approach by having only two episodes. As discussed later, this reverts to more traditional broadcast network programming practices and consumption habits.

At the opposite end of the true crime spectrum are the documentary series produced by the international streaming platform Netflix – Making a Murderer and The Staircase. Similarly, HBO’s The Jinx (2015) is billed as a documentary mini-series and is available on its cable service and streaming platform. Each is representative of a true crime documentary series structured according to the emerging conventions accompanying long-form narrative television. The Netflix and HBO true crime series recount real and historical crime-based events over a multi-episode season and in the case of Making a Murderer, two seasons.

A key formal feature uniting these US true crime series is the organisation of their narratives into a long-form, multiple-episodic structure. By configuring a documentary narrative over multiple episodes, these programs have variously contributed to emerging factual series formats that continue to re-define the true crime genre and documentary more broadly. Making a Murderer is constructed over two seasons with each comprising 10 episodes, so 20 episodes in total. The Staircase as featured on Netflix in 2018, consists of 13 episodes over a single season. Both series are structured using documentary modes and factual narrative conventions such as a traditional third-person omniscient mode that effaces the presence of the filmmakers and helps to position the audience alongside their central subjects. Innovations occur in the way dramatic narrative devices such as revelations and cliffhangers are used to invigorate the factual content, allowing it to play out over multiple episodes and seasons. These (traditionally narrative) devices provide the structural ebb and flow to sustain long-form, multi-episodic series like Making a Murderer, The Staircase and The Jinx.

A shifting mediascape

Accounting for narrative innovations occurring in true crime series also relies on addressing the impact of the upheavals occurring in the industrial context of television. That is, both cause and effect of altered spectatorship practices as web-based streaming continues to disrupt the paradigm of broadcast network television. The proliferation of international digital streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV, Disney+, Paramount+, as well Australian streaming services like Binge and Stan coincides with the rise of true crime as an emergent genre. Its growing appeal has led Stella Bruzzi to argue it has expanded from a niche genre to ‘a veritable explosion in the number of trial and crime documentaries, across cinema, television and other screening platforms’ (Bruzzi 2016, 249). The consumption of true crime programming on ‘other screening platforms’ enables its popularity to be measured in more precise and quantifiable terms and provides the rationale for its repeated commissioning.

With viewing modes on streaming services echoed by the catch-up options supplied by free-air-television, the now familiar activity of binge watching sees audiences watch multiple episodes and even entire seasons in single sessions. Describing this mode of viewing as ‘appointment television’, De Fino (2014, 11) states, ‘“quality” series – especially dramas, – typically demand a commitment to their detailed and constantly evolving stories, from week to week, season to season’. Crucially, overarching narratives spanning multiple episodes and seasons are more readily sustained by such viewing habits and have made way for the production of long-form narrative programs that characterises ‘quality television’.

Such quality programming commenced with the premium cable channel provider HBO (Home Box Office) and its first foray into original content production in the 1990s. Commencing with the prison drama, OZ [1997–2003] it was soon joined by the breakout hits Sex and the City [1998–2004] and The Sopranos [1999–2007]. Following in steady progression was HBO’s, Six Feet Under [2001–2005], the anthology series, The Wire [2002–2008] and the watershed series, Game of Thrones [2011–2019]. More recent quality long-form crime dramas on HBO continue with the three-season anthology series, True Detective [2014–present].

Narratives are described as long-form in these series dramas because they have replaced brief plot scenarios resolved in single episodes. Long-form television narratives are characterised by layered storylines spanning multi-episodes and multiple seasons. Crafted by showrunners and writing rooms populated by teams of writers, these shows pursue character-driven stories sustained by complex protagonists. The combination has created nuanced storytelling with multifaceted story arcs that have heralded a new ‘golden age of television’ and elevated TV storytelling far above what was once thought possible.

Quality television synonymous with long-form narrative programs eventually spread beyond HBO to other premium cable operators like American Movie Channel (AMC) and Showtime amongst others. Between these two alone, stand-out dramas were the AMC commissioned Mad Men [2007–2015] and Breaking Bad [2008–2013] and Showtime’s Dexter [2006–2013] and Homeland [2011–2020]. Just as long-form narrative programs on premium cable providers were setting the standard for quality television series, new streaming services like Netflix and Amazon began turning their attention to developing their original content offerings.

When Netflix began planning the production of its original content, it turned to the metadata harvested from its subscribers in order to assess what kind of content hosted on its platform held the most appeal for its subscribers. The data indicated a widespread interest in content starring the actor Kevin Spacey and revealed some unexpected results like repeated viewings of a British TV series from the 1990s, House of Cards (1990). Other popular content amongst its subscribers also featured a variety of political subject matter (Franzen 2013). Conventional television industry wisdom dictated new shows commenced with the production of a pilot episode, test-screened to an audience and subjected to a prolonged feedback regime. For all their limitations, pilot episodes help negotiate the costly prototype process of producing new television shows that can result in a 98% failure rate (Nathanson 2013). Disrupting this conventional approach to development, House of Cards [2013–2018] was the first television series to be specifically produced for Netflix. Dispensing with pilots, Netflix opted to produce an entire season. Further disruption came in the form of allowing subscribers to access the entire season immediately, allowing audiences to determine the pace at which they watch the entire season. While it has become almost standard today, this radical decision stood in stark contrast to the forced drip feed of releasing one new episode a week that characterised the broadcast network era.

Netflix’s belief in the data generated by its subscribers and the ability of its algorithm to translate that data into meaningful information for the purposes of producing its original content paid off when its first original show proved to be an enduring hit with its millions of subscribers. House of Cards went on to comprise 6 seasons and 73 episodes over 6 years. The combination of the many changes brought to how television was produced and distributed under the new logics of a streaming service not only ushered in binge viewing but led to the paradigm shift from the business-as-usual content production of the broadcast era. Along with the demise of mass audiences strived for by traditional scheduling and conventions surrounding prime-time ratings, data-informed decision-making has disrupted content commissioning practices by providing more reliable insights into the choices and behaviours of subscribers (Datoo 2014). In 2014, Netflix’s VP of original documentary and comedy, Lisa Nishimura, stated, ‘The success of “House of Cards” gave the service confidence to branch into new categories … From day one, we've supported nonfiction and documentaries, and we've been able to see unilaterally how great storytelling resonates’ (McDonald 2014, n.p.). The combination of segmenting audiences, data-driven algorithms and the curation of content has revealed the popularity of documentary programming and its role in a streaming platform’s ability to keep its subscribers (Finney 2022)

The full extent to which the data-driven tracking of user behaviours informs decision making on programming within Netflix remains within the confines of the streamer’s ‘blackbox’ of proprietary confidentiality that surrounds the commercial application of its algorithms. But according to Sarah Arnold (2016, 53), Netflix can garner detailed information regarding audience viewing habits:

It can assess the performance of individual assets (TV shows or films) much more closely and with much greater accuracy. With large amounts of data on overall user engagement with individual shows, films, or genres, it can more quickly act (to purchase or remove content). It can, in theory, target content to users more effectively, based on the way in which such data can be used to predict viewing patterns.

When new true crime series are released they dominate placement and promotion on their respective platforms from Netflix to HBO Max. In part, the success of true crime programming is in response to the new levels of accurate data collection that evidence its widespread popularity amongst subscribers of streaming services. Nevertheless, had the format and approach of true crime as a genre not adapted to digital platforms and their new modes of consumption it is unlikely they would have ascended to their current status that attracts headlines in Documentary Business in 2023, such as ‘True Crime Boon: the latest commissions’ (Hamilton 2023).

In addition to the important context of streaming services, key to true crime’s continued popularity has been its serialisation. Whether it is in the form of podcasts or the multiple episode and season shows on the global behemoths of Netflix and Amazon, or on Australia’s free-to-air networks and their catch-up services, true crime-based/adapted/inspired series have become a staple of programming. While serialised documentary predates the advent of streaming services and web-based consumption of media, documentary content that is episodically and seasonally structured through narratives similar to drama series has taken hold in the online world of digital media. According to Dennis Broe (2019, 4),

[s]erial TV itself has challenged the old commercial constraints of having to tell a story in one episode so that the series can be syndicated as a stand-alone entity. Instead serial producers have spun a complex story that relies for its impact on consistent and more active viewing.

Missing an episode is not an option for streaming users when it comes to serialised television. The open-ended narrative structure driving each episode also advances the series in an intricately bound manner, with resolutions or part resolutions only coming at season finales.

Against the industrial upheavals occurring in television and an altered mediascape, the true crime genre has experienced a large increase in popularity. Elizabeth Walters suggests true crime serialised documentary television ‘remains popular and impactful – and with each iteration continues to be carefully constructed in ways that profoundly shape our conception of law enforcement and the justice system itself’ (2021, 34). According to Cecil (2020, 46), ‘the foundation of today’s true-crime movement is provided by episodic programming’. With its appeal extended internationally through the global uptake of streaming services and other web-based formats like podcasts and catch-up TV applications, true crime series now operate within an expansive genre, adapting form and content in response to changing audiences and their preferences. Understanding the growing popularity of true crime necessarily means accounting for why streaming services have embraced true crime programs and how their role in its generic transformation reflects broader innovations that have reformulated television content. The next sections discuss the nature of generic transformation in true crime documentary series through the examination of two long-form documentary series.

Making a hit

In 2015, Netflix released the first season of Making a Murderer. Over 20 episodes and 2 seasons, writer/directors Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos recount the events surrounding Steven Avery wrongly charged and convicted of attempted murder and rape. Avery served 18 years of a 32-year sentence and after his release in 2003, he pursued a civil suit against Manitowoc County for wrongful conviction. Filmed over a 10-year period, the first season centred on the events occurring between 1985 and 2007. It covers the first time Avery was charged and arrested for attempted murder and his successful appeal and release in 2003 before being convicted once again of another murder that occurred in his family’s scrapyard business in 2005.

Ianniello and Batty’s (2021) discussion of dramatic narrative conventions that characterise what they refer to as ‘finite serials’ provides a useful lens through which to examine narrative innovations in long-form true crime documentary series like Making a Murderer. They argue ‘clues, red herrings, revelations, heightened suspense and eventual resolution’ are particular structural imperatives in crime and mystery genres (Ianniello and Batty 2021, 65). There are clear parallels between these genre conventions and the structural logics required to follow the kind of in-depth investigation common in true crime documentary, especially when it is organised as a long-form, multi-episode series like Making a Murderer and The Staircase.

Ianneillo and Batty contend finite drama serials usually follow an A-story that ‘responds to one central dramatic question (CDQ) … posed in the first episode […] developed over subsequent episodes and/or seasons […] is resolved and the serial concludes’ (2021, 65). A central thematic question (CTQ) can then add story layers allowing ‘numerous character arcs to constellate and connect, orbiting around the CDQ’ (Ianniello and Batty 2021, 65). Making a Murderer adheres to these principles by following Avery’s trial lawyers and court procedures for his second trial and murder charge. With a central dramatic question configured around Avery’s innocence and the ability of his defence team to prove it in court, the trial structure provides for a pre-determined ending governed by the final reveal of a verdict. As in drama, the verdict creates a climax that organises season one.

At the same time, Making a Murderer also manages to subvert narrative expectations of a neatly resolved verdict. In the prologue of episode one, through shaky handheld footage, Steven Avery is shown arriving home in 2003. Supported by newspaper headlines, the audience is informed new DNA evidence assisted Avery’s release after false imprisonment and serving 18 years of a 30-year sentence. When Avery’s voice over commences it counters the imagery of his joyous homecoming suggesting something is amiss. Other voice-overs also present his release in the past tense and a female voice provides the warning, ‘I did tell him, be careful […] Manitowoc County is not done with you’. Left hanging on this heightened sense of suspense, the opening credits begin to roll across a lengthy, graphic-laden and atmospheric title sequence.

When the first episode resumes it follows Avery’s civil suit against Manitowoc County, with the central questions of why and how appearing to revolve around the circumstances that led to his wrongful conviction for attempted murder and sexual assault in 1985. The next sequence is supplied by archival footage combined with news footage about his civil suit, then low-quality audio with Avery’s disembodied voice reflecting on his civil suit shifts the narrative into the present tense. His visual absence combined with the distant audio quality of his verbal account gives the impression he is speaking down a telephone line and once again cues the audience to the possibility that all is not well in Avery’s situation. The episode progresses by delving into his backstory setting up how the series will unfold in the manner of a mystery with multiple twists and turns. The recurring use of Avery’s disembodied voice that provides the narration helps to place the audience in his precarious position; that of the accused rather than that of the authorities.

Making a Murderer establishes suspense and questions that utilise the primary appeal of true crime documentaries, that is the audience’s fear of becoming a victim of crime. However, Making a Murderer supplies additional complexity to this trope because as Walters (2021, 30) argues, it leverages it in

a wholly different way to suggest that viewers could become the victims not of crime but of wrongful accusations and that innocence (or even reasonable doubt) may not guarantee legal exoneration. The show also undercuts the veracity and perceived objectivity of forensic evidence by emphasizing the ways in which it may be manipulated to help convict those whose guilt, the series implies, has been predetermined by authorities … 

By engaging in the back story of its characters and exploring the ambiguities of the case against Avery and the complexity surrounding his former and current circumstances, Making a Murderer was far from a tabloid exercise and manages to orchestrate empathy for the different parties with competing viewpoints in a complex true crime series.

Following what has become the standard strategy for Netflix, all 10 episodes of season one of Making a Murderer were made available simultaneously on 18 December 2015. The series became a true crime phenomenon reportedly securing Netflix 19 million viewers in the United States in the first month it became available (Lynch 2016).

The Staircase – ascending from Canal+ to HBO to Netflix

The Staircase is a true crime documentary series that between 2004 and 2018 has variously been packaged as an eight-episode mini-series, a two-hour news special and generated two sequels. Ultimately it was re-packaged into a 13-episode Netflix true crime documentary series. The first iteration of The Staircase was produced by Jean-Xavier de Lestrade for French and British broadcasters in 2004 as a mini-series to cover the indictment and trial of American author, Michael Peterson, accused of murdering his wife, Kathleen. De Lestrade gained further access to Michael Peterson and his family between 2012 and 2013. The result was a two-hour sequel, the Staircase II that captured Peterson’s release from jail and pending re-trial. In 2016, a second sequel, Staircase III, was once again commissioned by French broadcaster Canal+ as a single feature-length program. Both sequels and the original miniseries were then purchased by Netflix and packaged into a 13-episode series that were all released for streaming on 8 June 2018. Netflix was eager to gain access to the true crime series in the wake of their enormous success with Making a Murderer.

The central dramatic question of The Staircase, as suggested in the first episode titled ‘Chapter 1: Crime or Accident’, asks, ‘Is he innocent or guilty?’ Did he murder his wife, or did she fall? One of the central thematic questions is implied 21 minutes into the first episode when David Rudolf, the defence lawyer for Michael Peterson states:

It always seemed to me that the greatest threat to our freedoms came not from people who committed crimes but from the way that the government tends to respond to that and the way the government tends to take on power for itself … And so, for me, being in the role of a criminal defence lawyer is being in the role of a person who can do at least a little bit to hold back some of the government excesses, to make sure that we don’t lose our freedoms in an effort to protect them.

The thematic question that arises asks, How can we protect our personal freedoms? The central thematic question is addressed by various participants throughout each episode, reflecting Ianniello and Batty’s (2021) notion of multiple character perspectives exploring the central thematic question. Though they are referring to dramatic narratives, the CTQ provides an organising principle around which documentary narratives can be structured across multiple episodes. In The Staircase, fear of the justice system not getting it right or that we may never truly know the guilt or innocence of the accused and/or convicted, is the core theme underpinning the narrative construction.

The long-form, episodic structure allows time for the evidence to be considered from different perspectives of the participants, and by extension, the audience. The filmmaker de Lestrade’s access was primarily to Peterson and his defence team, with limited access to the prosecution, and as a result the series favours the perspectives of the defence team, ‘mounting the emotional narrative case for Michael Peterson’ (Bruzzi 2016, 255). While Peterson is the main focus of the documentary, it is his lawyer, David Rudolf, whose perspective the audience is exposed to most and who appears to experience the most dramatic ‘character arc’.

From his initial articulation of the CTQ, it appears Rudolf believes his role is to protect clients from an overzealous prosecution that might unfairly impinge on one’s freedom. In discussing his defence strategy, he suggests that rather than attempt to prove Peterson’s innocence, his strategy is to promote reasonable doubt. In ‘Chapter 8: The Verdict’ he states:

You know, what we’ve basically built into our system is the notion that we want to have guilt proven beyond a reasonable doubt to avoid innocent people going to prison. It’s not perfect, but that’s the goal.

Court footage then shows Rudolf delivering his defence using slides to emphasise each cause for reasonable doubt. A title superimposes ‘three hours later’ and dissolves back in the court room where Rudolf plays the 911 call for help. It fades to black before cutting to Michael Peterson reflecting on the possible outcomes. His apparent equanimity has a distancing effect, creating ambiguity regarding his guilt or innocence. Twenty-eight minutes into ‘Chapter 8: The Verdict’, Peterson states:

I can, in a very loose definition live at peace with myself. And if you can do that, it really doesn’t make any difference where that is. So, I’ll just probably just not be any different on Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday if I come back to this house or if I go somewhere else. It’s not going to change who I am or who I know I am. It will still be me. And the trappings certainly could be very, very different. The environment certainly could be very different but that’s just – environment.

This contrasts with Rudolf’s reaction after the jury returns a guilty verdict.

If there’s not at least reasonable doubt in this case, at least reasonable doubt, then I don’t understand what I’m doing … it didn’t just disappoint me, it shook the foundations of my beliefs. It shook the foundations of my beliefs in the justice system, in human beings, in my own abilities, in my judgement, in my sense of reality … it just blew me away emotionally and psychologically.

Rudolf’s are the last words heard at the end of ‘Chapter 8: The Verdict’ (the original final episode in the series). It ends with wide shots of Peterson’s children sitting silently in their home. Bruzzi (2016, 255) suggests ‘trials make such riveting screen entertainment while also problematising the notion that they make the perfect subject matter for documentaries for their inherent narrative cohesion’. In The Staircase, the verdict resolves the narrative but denies any kind of emotional resolution. As an audience, we are left to question the outcome of the trial. It is perhaps why the filmmaker decided to give the last word to Rudolf, so that, as an audience, we might identify and align with his perspective and definitive emotional arc.

Despite the verdict being publicised at the time of its release, major reversals triggered by new revelations and discoveries, push the narrative momentum across the first eight episodes that culminate in Peterson’s guilty verdict. Revelations serve as narrative hooks at the beginning of each episode. Peterson’s neighbour in Germany was found dead at the bottom of a staircase at the start of ‘Chapter 3: A Striking Coincidence’. The discovery of a blow poke, suggested to be the murder weapon, is a key piece of evidence found at the start of ‘Chapter 7: The Blow Poke Returns’.

Similar to Making a Murderer, The Staircase also raises the stakes by implying there is a sense of powerlessness experienced by anyone even accused of a crime against an all-powerful State. Compounding it all is the possibility of a miscarriage of justice from a flawed legal system. For Bruzzi (2016, 251),

[t]he Staircase resonated with viewers and continues to be influential and memorable largely because, while it did not employ fictional methods such as reconstruction to embellish its narrative explicitly, it did mobilise and exploit, often quite explicitly, a real trial's inherent melodrama and sensationalist narrative complexity.

While it fell short of the cultural phenomenon that was Making a Murderer, The Staircase proved Netflix’s commitment to developing a new true crime series rather than immediately going down the sequel road to pursue a Making a Murderer II. Albeit a second season of Making a Murderer was eventually released, it was not until 19 October 2018 and focused on Avery’s nephew, Brendan Dassey. True to its multi-iteration origins, the true crime subject matter of The Staircase was recently capped in 2022 when HBO’s Max streaming service adapted it into a fully fledged, dramatised biographical drama series starring Colin Firth.

Underbelly – Australian network logics of a true crime franchise

The entirely dramatised series, Underbelly, is a reminder that actual true crime is mostly the province of daily news bulletins routinely dispensed with tabloid style hype then forgotten in the rapid churn of accelerating news cycles. The Melbourne gangland wars that became the subject matter of Underbelly, however, had been a fixture in Australian news for close to a decade, from 1994 to 2005. Chronicling the events sees Underbelly aligned with Ian Punnett’s (2018, 12) observation that, ‘true crime reports on past newsworthy murder narratives, with an emotional component intended to prioritize such sensations as horror, fear, pain, and frustration, which is either to its shame, or its credit, depending on the disposition of the observer’.

As a true crime series, Underbelly is steeped in the network environment of the broadcast era. Producers, Des Monahgan and Bob Campbell, are former Seven network executives who left to form their own production company, Screentime. Underbelly first aired on Australia’s free-to-air commercial network, Channel Nine, between 13 February and 7 May 2008. It was adapted into a 13-episode true crime drama from the investigative journalism of John Silvester and Andrew Rule and their 2004 book, Leadbelly – Inside Australia’s Underworld Wars.

The first season was based on the events surrounding Melbourne’s infamous gangland killings between 1995 and 2004 which led to at least 34 deaths (Boland 2009). Due to a court injunction in Melbourne, Underbelly was initially prevented from being televised in the State of Victoria but it aired in every other Territory and State capital city in Australia and secured the number one ratings spot. If the series had screened in Melbourne, it is argued that in 2008 it would have been the most-watched program in Australia (Boland 2009).

The early ratings success of season one in 2008 contributed to Underbelly becoming Australia’s premiere true crime brand and the first true crime drama franchise that includes an anthology series and four telemovies (Sydney Morning Herald 2009). The anthology series consists of six seasons (2008–2013) comprising 68 episodes that recount events and personalities drawn from Australia’s history of organised crime. The four ‘stand alone’ telemovies extended the brand under the title, Underbelly Files, aired between 7 and 21 February 2011: Tell Them Lucifer Was Here (2011a), Infiltration (2011b), and The Man Who Got Away (2011c). In 2018 a fourth instalment was produced, Underbelly Files: Chopper.

Despite the upheavals in television since it first appeared in 2008, Underbelly represents a successful true crime franchise that has continued to find audience appeal in Australia in the era of streaming services. Although latter seasons have been made available on the catch-up, video on demand services provided by Nine Now, the altered context surrounding the consumption of Australian television has not been incorporated into its narrative structures. Indeed, moving in the opposite direction to multi-episode seasons of true crime programming, the 2022 Underbelly season, Vanishing Act, reduced the season down to two episodes, the shortest season of any Underbelly program. This was a significant drop down from 8 episodes of seasons five and six, and the 13 episodes of seasons one to four.

Constituting the seventh season of the anthology collection, Vanishing Act dramatises the events surrounding the disappearance of Melissa Caddick, a fraudster and financial embezzler who captured nationwide attention in 2021 when her severed foot mysteriously appeared on a beach in southern New South Wales. Media speculation was rife that she may have performed the deed herself in an effort to mask the fact she was still alive. With its sensationalism and topicality, the Caddick story does not easily fit into the previous canon of Underbelly that consistently focused on Australia’s organised crime networks.

In describing its appeal for dramatisation, screenwriter Matt Ford observed Caddick’s story is ‘such a great mix of tragedy, horror, Gothic weirdness and sadness’ (Rugendyke 2022). One of the challenges that perhaps prevented the series from being developed beyond two episodes was the lack of narrative closure provided by a trial verdict. Instead, in an attempt to negotiate the real-life events, the writers positioned the fictionalised Caddick as an unreliable narrator and posed three possible scenarios to account for her disappearance. In May 2023, the coronial inquest determined that Melissa Caddick is probably dead, but the coroner could not identify the cause of death. In keeping with innovations in true crime genre, the coronial verdict might serve as a narrative plot point around which a longer form true crime documentary series or drama adaptation might be developed.

Despite the generic transformations occurring in the true crime genre, with only two episodes, Vanishing Act reflects pre-streaming era approaches true crime programming. Australia’s free-to-air broadcasters have adapted to the streaming era of television through innovations in the way audiences access their free-to-air content. The respective catch-up and on-demand services are adept responses to the new modes of spectatorship and media consumption behaviours produced by web-based television services. Crucially, however, technology and web-based access only ever form part of an innovation equation. Content remains ‘king’ as testified by the unprecedented scale of original programming commissioned by Netflix, Amazon, Disney+ and other international streaming services.

Television content produced for the streaming era must take into account changes in form that reflect the new consumption habits and preferences accompanying web-based media platforms. Narrative innovation supported by formal changes like documentary serialisation has underscored the popularity of the true crime genre on international streaming platforms. In contrast, true crime programming produced in Australia seems fixed when it comes to formal and narrative innovations and is more evocative of the legacy media era of broadcast television than the current video on demand era of web-based media dominated by streaming services.

Conclusion

The three examples focused on in this discussion, The Staircase, Making a Murderer and Underbelly, provide insights into how narrative is employed to negotiate ‘the real’ of their respective true crime content and how this reflects levels of program innovation. As Cecil highlights (2020, 7), ‘[o]ne must acknowledge that the genre is currently undergoing a transformation, which means that the traditional definitions of true crime will need to be expanded to encompass the newest types of narratives and experiences’. Narrative innovation is a key means through which this transformation of true crime is continuing to occur.

The influence of long-form drama continues to be felt in documentary series produced and distributed across streaming platforms like Netflix and HBO Max et al., with one of the central structuring devices being seasons comprised of more than six episodes. The combination of structured multi-episode seasons coinciding with an increase in the factual quotient of true crime programming has elevated the true crime genre into some of the most popular streaming programs. True crime has proven indicative of how generic transformation manifesting through long-form narrative offers solutions in terms of re-tooling former genre and television formats. Australian true crime content seems primed for such a re-invention. Embracing documentary serialisation offers formal alternatives that not only elevate true crime as a genre beyond tabloid conventions but can provide compelling narrative innovation beyond indiscriminate dramatisations.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sean Maher

Dr Sean Maher is Associate Professor in the Film, Screen & Animation Discipline in the Creative Industries Faculty at QUT. In 2019 he was ranked as ‘Australia's leading researcher in Film’. In 2017 he was Visiting Scholar at the UCLA Film and TV Archives that contributed to his 2021 monograph, Film Noir and Los Angeles – Urban History and the Dark Imaginary, published by Routledge.

Susan Cake

Dr Susan Cake lectures in screenwriting at the Queensland University of Technology. In 2018 she was awarded Outstanding Doctoral Thesis for her creative practice-led research examining how writing narrative comedy performed creative resistance in her proposed television series, Fighting Fit. She recently completed a market analysis report for Screen Queensland on the feasibility of studio expansion on the Gold Coast and her current research explores technological disruptions to script development and writing for expanded notions of ‘the screen’.