Trial 4

Fans of either work [“Murder on a Sunday Morning” and “The Staircase,”] will find much to like in the legal labyrinths and behavioral complexities of “Trial 4.”

Clearly, there’s a lot to admire about “Trial 4,” but it suffers from a common problem in recent docuseries (looking at you, “The Vow”) in that there’s a five or six-episode version of this story that feels more urgent. The story of Sean Ellis should rage with righteous anger, but the length of this project allows that to dissipate more than it needed to. Still, I won’t forget this story, and anyone who commits eight hours of their life to it will likely feel the same.

Ever since Netflix helped launch the modern true-crime docuseries craze with "Making a Murderer" five years ago, networks and services have been seeking stories with similar heft. Trial 4 fits that bill -- dealing with police misconduct, systemic racism and a miscarriage of justice -- without quite reaching those levels, mostly due to stretching the project over a few-too-many parts.