ERROL MORRIS’ ‘WORMWOOD’ DEBUTS ON NETFLIX

‘Wormwood’ tries to bring darkest elements into the light of day.

There’s always time to see what Errol Morris has been up to lately.

Best known for his documentaries, especially 1988’s “The Thin Blue Line” and 2003’s Oscar-winning “The Fog of War,” Morris’s stylistic influence on the genre is still widely seen in such high-grade, psychologically layered documentaries as “The Keepers” and “The Jinx.” It’s also evident in today’s glut of true-crime shows on cable and streaming services. Podcasters, too, are indebted to Morris for making the world safe for intelligent meandering, in which a storyteller diligently chisels at a complicated and even arcane subject with no guarantee of a satisfying conclusion.

Morris’ new project is a mildly intriguing if somewhat overwrought docuseries for Netflix called “Wormwood,” which takes an old and previously covered story — the CIA’s connection to the 1953 death of germ-warfare scientist Frank Olson, who either jumped or was thrown from the window of a Manhattan hotel room — and tries to bring its darkest and stilluncertain elements out into the light of day.

The 69-year-old director also gets to indulge his love of classic noir films, devoting a large chunk of the series to scripted re-enactments and other supposed events, starring actor Peter Sarsgaard as Olson.

“Wormwood” is presented as a stylish hybrid of many forms — documentary, “Mad Men”-era noir, art collage and clip-job — none of which comes through with total success. The better story here, which Morris devotes nominal attention to near the end, is the singular and even heartbreaking obsession of Olson’s son Eric, who was a boy when his father died. Eric has spent the better part of five decades trying to pry more details loose, even as those with firsthand knowledge have all mostly died.

Morris delivers six episodes of roughly 40 minutes each, peeling this onion as slowly and artfully as possible, taking repeat laps around the story in hopes that multiple perspectives and resonant mantras of facts and findings (as well as metaphorical snips from Laurence Olivier’s 1948 film version of “Hamlet”) will help the viewer become similarly obsessed. It’s possible that some will; as a binge-watch, “Wormwood” is painless but not nearly as captivating as it attempts to be. The case has simply gone too cold.

Some viewers may recall the news coverage that accompanied a presidential commission’s 1975 findings that Frank Olson, who was working on bioweapons research at Fort Detrick, Maryland, had been dosed with LSD by CIA operatives nine days before he died. The family received an official apology, a meeting with President Gerald Ford and a financial settlement. But Eric Olson kept pressing for more information, the start of a long journey of obfuscated twists and turns.