Is TV’s true crime genre news?
Sporting a title that might have come from a detective novel, the threepart series “The Lesson Is Murder” begins streaming on Hulu.
Produced by ABC News, “Lesson” follows former FBI agent Dr. Bryanna Fox as she studies the minds and motivations of convicted killers. A university professor, she also invites students to discuss her findings and prepare profiles of each killer.
One of her subjects is Will Davis, a former nurse who killed at least four of his patients. Awaiting execution, he speaks for the first time. Fox also studies former officer Robert Fratta, who arranged the murder of his wife in a murder-for-hire scheme, and studies Ivie DeMolina, a former prostitute whose two homicides resulted from robberies gone bad.
Each of these killers have distinct personalities and equally different approaches to their crimes. Fox and her students hope to recognize patterns and establish profiles that may contribute to the capture of other killers.
Not unlike detective novels, series about serial killers have become a TV staple and a bingeworthy genre. But are they news, or a predictable distraction? Hulu gives the ABC News division a place to present expanded coverage. But does it matter when it chooses to ignore or downplay important stories in pursuit of the familiar? ›
“City Confidential” (10 p.m., A&E, TV-14) returns for an eighth season. First up: a story of an infant’s body washed ashore not far from Boston. ›
A “Vice Special Report” (11 p.m., Vice) examines Gaggle, a software that surveys the content of student work on computers and devices issued by their schools. It’s intended to detect “dangerous” content and indications that a user may have become a danger to him or herself or others.
The company contends that many tragedies have been prevented, while others express concern about a loss of privacy in a world where so many young people live online and in their virtual worlds.
› Netflix begins streaming “The Night Agent,” a 10-episode paranoid espionage thriller about an earnest FBI agent, Peter Sutherland (Gabriel Basso), assigned to monitor a shadowy group inside the White House, only to become embroiled in a vast government conspiracy. Fans of Jack Bauer might be in for a treat here. The main character is named Sutherland, after all.
Do viewers still have an appetite for nailbiters of this sort, or have recent events changed the dynamic? The previous administration earned two impeachment rebukes for offenses to the constitution that could have fueled 10 thrillers. But they were far closer in tone to “Veep” than “24.”