Believe me when I say I rarely find a television show offensively disrespectful, but this show screams it throughout. The viewer has to pointlessly watch a version of the story which literally seems to be made for a 12-year-old or an intellectually-disabled person. The people affected are put in front of a camera to let out their innermost feelings while the producers grin every time a tear starts coming. The show appears to exist as a program which intelligently and thoroughly informs the population about cases which have happened and, I guess, how they can be dealt with. However, past this facade, it's a great big pile of garbage.
There is a serious, intensely dramatic tone as the show goes into a case about, let's say, a woman named Bella who was stalked and murdered. It's gone through by the narrator and a couple relevant people (well, to the disrespect of the family, the most exciting parts are. What if you, holding back tears, had a friend summarize your story to someone and only included the sensational parts?)
Dateline brings together the members of the legal teams, law enforcement, friends and family. Cousin Joey stays sober long enough to mumble a few sentences to the camera about how Bella was an angel while her childhood pictures appear on the screen. He mumbles something generic about awfulness. Her mother starts talking about it again, emotions either disturbingly killed off by now or shaken up by her recollection, the stage producers standing just out of frame. An intense-looking attorney from the case gives his dramatic explanation (retelling.) He manages not to say "Hi everyone!" to everyone at home into the camera. At least, they don't use that clip.
"But theres one piece of evidence they DIDN'T cover." A variation of this will be at every commercial break.
The show (besides lazily and unashamedly throwing in endless dead-end cliffhangers) exists only to draw out the most emotional and disturbing parts of the case, then send everyone home. Why do we need to spend any part of our day hearing about a creep hurting a person's community? The people affected think they have done something positive for themselves by sharing their pain, but were really just a convenient face which Dateline's producers could add to the case. They are tossed in and the producers go onto luring the viewer's attention into some other mysterious and sensational part of the story.
It could be good if produced with different goals in mind, but it's hard to come to much of a conclusion about this topic. If Bella's mother, cousin, father, sister, etc. had no way to tell the nation their story, would they feel they were missing this? They might, and it may slow their healing, but Dateline doesn't do this right.
There is a serious, intensely dramatic tone as the show goes into a case about, let's say, a woman named Bella who was stalked and murdered. It's gone through by the narrator and a couple relevant people (well, to the disrespect of the family, the most exciting parts are. What if you, holding back tears, had a friend summarize your story to someone and only included the sensational parts?)
Dateline brings together the members of the legal teams, law enforcement, friends and family. Cousin Joey stays sober long enough to mumble a few sentences to the camera about how Bella was an angel while her childhood pictures appear on the screen. He mumbles something generic about awfulness. Her mother starts talking about it again, emotions either disturbingly killed off by now or shaken up by her recollection, the stage producers standing just out of frame. An intense-looking attorney from the case gives his dramatic explanation (retelling.) He manages not to say "Hi everyone!" to everyone at home into the camera. At least, they don't use that clip.
"But theres one piece of evidence they DIDN'T cover." A variation of this will be at every commercial break.
The show (besides lazily and unashamedly throwing in endless dead-end cliffhangers) exists only to draw out the most emotional and disturbing parts of the case, then send everyone home. Why do we need to spend any part of our day hearing about a creep hurting a person's community? The people affected think they have done something positive for themselves by sharing their pain, but were really just a convenient face which Dateline's producers could add to the case. They are tossed in and the producers go onto luring the viewer's attention into some other mysterious and sensational part of the story.
It could be good if produced with different goals in mind, but it's hard to come to much of a conclusion about this topic. If Bella's mother, cousin, father, sister, etc. had no way to tell the nation their story, would they feel they were missing this? They might, and it may slow their healing, but Dateline doesn't do this right.