I turned it off somewhere in episode 3 because it seemed that the cops found the killer without the help of the internet sleuths which made their whole story basically pointless.
Yep. As a documentary I thought it was pretty weak, I got bored about halfway through that episode and spoiled the case by reading the wikipedia page, which is a sure sign that it’s not as gripping as the filmmakers imagined. Considering how many serial killers can go years without getting caught, Magnotta was not a paricularly “good” killer – one victim, killed in Magnotta’s own apartment, dismembered and left outside the exact same building. This case was a no-brainer that the police would have (and did) solve in short order, although the fact that he was able to make it out of the country and interpol had to get involved added a certain angle to it.
I didn’t realize that the internet sleuths had falsely accused anyone else; that sucks. Worse, for all of their sleuthing they weren’t able to identify the cat killer as Magnotta until someone told them, and even then they were pretty lucky that it ended up actually being him considering the lack of hard evidence they actually found to tie him to the videos. Basically they “guessed right” but were unable to provide anything of actual use to the police.
I still thought it was a reasonably well done show, but not a great example of the power of the internet or anything. And as always, it’s interesting how people react much more strongly to the cats being killed than the actual person.
What makes the thing worthwile is the ending, see my earlier post and post #40.