Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Tuesday, March 21st, 2023

The ethics of true crime documentaries

Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, March 21st, 2023.

THE ETHICS OF TRUE CRIME DOCUMENTARIES
Broadcast is reporting that Netflix UK's Kate Townsend has taken the unusual step of writing personally to the most senior factual executives at Britain’s broadcasters and streamers about the ethics of documentary making:

Broadcast understands that the streamer’s vice-president of documentary film sent a short personal email earlier this month to her counterparts at the likes of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky, Discovery, Apple, Amazon and Disney+.

The email proposed a meeting between the bigwigs to discuss the “ethics and approach to documentaries” with a view to establishing “cross-industry principles”.

What prompted the email is not clear, and two different sources with knowledge of the message expressed their surprise. One described the suggestion as “slightly bizarre” given the experience and standing of the recipients, and another described it as “coming out of nowhere”.

There has been some discussion about the ethics of true crime programming in recent times. Last summer, Soho Studios Entertainment’s Ian Lamarra co-ordinated a meeting of producers, commissioners and compliance specialists to discuss whether and how the industry should shape a collective approach to the genre.

'RESTAURANTS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD' IS WORTH WATCHING
NatGeo is premiering a new show tonight called Restaurants At The Edge Of The World, in which Chef Kirsten Kish (Top Chef, Fast Foodies, Netflix's Iron Chef) travels to far-off restaurants located in some of the most isolated places in the world. It's a really fun ride and I recently had the opportunity to speak with her about the series:

Q: Obviously there's a lot of preparation that goes into these episodes, but how much did you know ahead of time about what you're going to be experiencing?

Kristen Kish: That was a question that we went back and forth on with production. And we settled on well, I do need to know a little bit, obviously. I'm going to know where we're going. But I don't want to know who these people are. I don't want to know which restaurant and what food they cook. So all that was kind of a mystery. I was meant to find that all out on camera.

But there were things that I did need to know. We discussed things like "what activities do you feel comfortable doing? So Kristen, are you okay rappelling down a waterfall?" Yes. "Are you okay diving in the Arctic?" Yes. They didn't tell me what I would be doing when I did these activities. But even so far as the very first day of filming, when I come onto scene and I need to go to the bathroom, and they're like, "Okay, we need to make sure that you don't meet the chef."

So they're like creating this path and division to make sure we don't even run into each other until that meeting happens on camera.

Q: Aside from the physical stuff on the show, you're also experiencing a lot of unusual food items and preparations. I wonder if there was ever a point where you thought "yeah, I don't think I can do this." I'm thinking specifically about that episode in Norway where the chef was talking about the pouch juices. And you had this look on your face as if you just wanted to run.

Kristen Kish: I was very skeptical of that. And I think I wasn't worried about the flavor. The flavor is going to be what it is. I've tasted some really bad things in my life. But it's the mind over matter of what it is. And then seeing the brown liquid and the sediment in the bottle, that throws your brain for a loop. You just you need to get yourself over that hump. I didn't particularly enjoy the flavor. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't for me. But yeah, that one makes you have to think about it.

TWEET OF THE DAY

ODDS AND SODS
* In the category of "Huh, that's still on the air," NBC Syndication Studios has renewed the daytime talker The Steve Wilkos Show for a 17th season. 

* Actor Tom Cavanagh will host Hey Yahoo!, a new series based on the most popular Yahoo search queries. It will premiere on the Game Show Network this summer.

* HGTV "taps into the zeitgeist of Mattel's Barbie" in its new competition series, Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge, set to premiere on the network this summer.

I'M NOT SAYING THAT 'SUCCESSION' HAS A VERY COASTAL-CENTRIC AUDIENCE, BUT....
Vulture is launching a newsletter called "Sucession Club" and it is the most New York thing you'll see this week. Here is that way they describe it:

For the past three seasons as we’ve watched Succession, we’ve wondered, Why don’t these people have more therapists?

But the show also presents oodles of questions that are a whole lot more answerable, with a rich, New Yorkey tapestry of richness and New Yorkiness. The scarves, the sweaters, the headphones, the cars, the name-drops, the allusions, the lunch spots, the streetscapes — the quiet touchstones of setting and set design and costuming are exquisite.

And that’s why we’re launching a newsletter exclusively for our subscribers devoted to the show’s last season. We’re calling it Succession Club because we want it to feel like a club — a place for us to gather with our colleagues and subscribers to dissect, obsess, and debate over all the minutiae of the final episodes of one of our favorite shows. We’ll be bringing in folks from across the magazine — from the style experts at the Cut to the ace TV critics at Vulture to the Intelligencer reporters who cover the real-life equivalents of these power players.

WHAT'S NEW FOR TUESDAY:

Restaurants At The Edge Of The World Series Premiere (NatGeo)
We Lost Our Human (Netflix)

Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.

SEE YOU WEDNESDAY!

If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.