The Thing About Pam

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]