The Innocent Man

The docuseries hits all the right beats of a good true crime offering: sensational crime, unimaginable fallout, wild abuse of power, and of course, the heroic figures still fighting for the truth to come out. And like most true crime docs, there's no neat bowtie of a resolution; the patterns of real life will always complicate the narrative. But the ending of The Innocent Man feels hopeless in way that most entries of the genre don't.

There are moments when Innocent Man plays like one of those popular true crime podcasts. Its storytelling can be pokey and features a dizzying array of supporting characters--the pistol-packing preacher is a highlight--and a few, granted, become stunningly significant as the narrative continues.

The most interesting elements in the series are the ones left unexplored. Loose threads abound. And together, they hint at a larger story more compelling and less familiar than the one that’s actually being told.

Even though Ross M. Dinerstein and Clay Tweel developed the series from a Grisham book that came out back in 2006, the fact that it’s arriving on the TV scene at this point in 2018 makes it look like a knockoff instead of a pioneer. It also doesn’t help that it’s plagued by cheesy staged reenactments and a slow pace that never fully draws in the audience. ... The Innocent Man is not as well done as other shows of its type, and that’s its biggest problem.