The Thing About Pam

Even if you've never watched Dateline NBC—but more especially if you have—NBC's miniseries The Thing About Pam is irresistibly entertaining.

At first, the show comes on a little strong with the whimsy. ... But Pam settles into a spirit of wry satire as it chronicles the grimly comical law enforcement ineptitude and/or cavalier disregard for the truth that allowed Pam to elude capture for so long.

Ms. Zellweger, who does justice to the role, transmits a powerful aura of derangement, and does so with enough energy to make you want to reach for the antacid pills. The one flaw in the tone of the six-part work is its pervasive note of archness, ever so slight but also ever so always there. A note common in many a crime docu-drama. ... Such things aside, all in all this is a wholly compelling tale.

There are times when I almost had to take out an umbrella to shield myself from the steady downpour of condescension permeating the series — e.g., when Pam adds several pumps of cherry syrup into her Enormous Gulp cup of soda, because, you know, small towns — but on the whole, “The Thing About Pam” manages to be both amusing and appalling, eccentric and shocking.

“The Thing About Pam” is entertaining. Zellweger, Duhamel and Judy Greer (as the Lincoln County prosecutor) land their laughs and make you wonder how stuff like this happens. ... But it takes on a different feel when you see Betsy’s children and husband caught up in the big gulp world of Pam Hupp. While your eyes widen, your heart also sinks.

Even though The Thing About Pam has significant flaws, it is compulsively watchable.

It is more with awe and maybe even admiration than derision that we say that we have no idea what to make of this series. ... We’re not sure whether we’re supposed to laugh, to cringe, to dissect, or to be disgusted.

Ultimately, “The Thing About Pam” is a watchable if often underwhelming true crime docudrama that wants to both be weird and play it safe, ending up in a strange middle ground between the two.

Drama meets "Dateline" in The Thing About Pam, an NBC series that seeks to turn one of the newsmagazine's salacious stories into a limited series, complete with ghoulish narration by reporter Keith Morrison. Featuring Renée Zellweger tromping around under the weight of prosthetic makeup, it's a true-crime experiment that clearly wants to be the next "Fargo" and doesn't get there.

While providing superficial nods to Pam’s grievances, “The Thing About Pam” repeatedly recedes into a one-note character study, a regression only emphasized by Renée Zellweger’s exaggerated lead performance.

It may well be that everyone involved in the Faria case was genuinely as naive as they seem, but it creates unrewarding drama and unsophisticated comedy.

There is no shortage of plot here, but the programme-makers are too concerned with the quirky tone – they think they’ve produced the next Fargo – to have considered the pacing, or any attempt to explore Hupp’s motivations. There is no mystery or suspense, because the show tells us from the outset that Hupp is the villain.

The Thing About Pam wallows in the lurid, adopting Dateline's cheesy approach of milking melodrama from tragedy, down to using front man Keith Morrison as narrator. [14 - 27 Mar 2022, p.6]

Zellweger is the most incongruous component in a performance that prioritizes caricature, and she calls into question what exactly The Thing About Pam is trying to accomplish with this extension of its existing IP. Entertainment? Journalism? Whatever it is, Zellweger is a distraction.

There isn’t any evidence that Zellweger, or the show, is approaching Pam with any real empathy. I guess we’re supposed to just accept that being played by an Oscar winner is empathy enough, even if that Oscar winner is wallowing in latex, waddling in mom jeans and latched to a convenience store cup of soda as if it’s a teat secreting the milk of human unkindness.

The show comes off more like an exhausting parody than anything else. ... There were distractions beyond Zellweger’s fat suit. Doing a fictionalized take on the absurdity of a true crime story lends itself to too many stylistic flourishes that aren’t necessary. ... There also seems to be very little in the way of subtlety or shading to the story.