The Premise
Antonio Campos' 2022 HBO Max miniseries dramatizes the Michael Peterson case, the same one Jean-Xavier de Lestrade filmed for his landmark 2004 docuseries. Colin Firth plays Peterson, a Durham novelist whose wife Kathleen (Toni Collette) is found at the bottof a staircase in their home in 2001. The first episodes set up three timelines running in parallel: the Petersons' blended family before the night, the immediate aftermath and Michael's arrest, and the French documentary crew (led by Vincent Vermignon as Lestrade and Juliette Binoche as editor Sophie Brunet) arriving to film the defense. Michael Stuhlbarg plays defense attorney David Rudolf. Parker Posey shows up as the DA. Sophie Turner, Odessa Young, and Patrick Schwarzenegger play the Peterson kids.
The Case For
Firth is genuinely good. He gets Peterson's specific vocal cadence, the writer's vanity, the way the man performs sincerity even when he might mean it. Toni Collette does more with flashback scenes than the script probably deserves. Michael Stuhlbarg is, as always, the best thing in any room he walks into. Campos is a real filmmaker (Christine, The Devil All the Time) and there are individual scenes here — a family dinner, a cross-examination rehearsal — that hum. The concept is interesting on paper: a scripted show about a documentary about a trial, layered so you're always aware someone is shaping the story you're watching.
The Case Against
The concept doesn't survive the execution. The show wants to interrogate true crime while also being a plush, eight-hour true crime buffet. It multiplies theories the original doc handled with more restraint and invents a queasy subplot involving Sophie Brunet that the real Brunet publicly called nonsense. The timelines shuffle without building; scenes end on knowing looks instead of consequences. And it exists in the shadow of a genuinely great documentary that's still streaming, which makes every choice here feel like a lesser cover of a better song.
Who It's For, Who'll Bounce
If you loved the Ryan Murphy Dahmer machine or the Assassination of Gianni Versace and want another prestige-cast true-crime reenactment to have on while you fold laundry, you'll find things to like. If you've seen Lestrade's original documentary, you'll spend eight hours wondering why. Viewers who came for Firth will get Firth. Viewers who came for anything to actually happen to the story we already know will be checking the runtime by episode four.
The Ruling
SLOP because the show can't decide whether it's a critique of true crime or a deluxe entry in the genre, and hedging that question hollows out both. Campos frames the docuseries crew as ethically compromised, then leans on their footage for his own dramatic beats. He invents interior lives for real people — including a romance the real subject has denied — while the show wags a finger at other people for editing reality. That's not a lecture in the political sense; it's a craft problem. The messaging is muddled because the storytelling is muddled. Firth's performance and a few Stuhlbarg scenes deserve a tighter, braver, four-episode version. What's here is eight episodes of prestige mumbling around a case a French filmmaker already told better twenty years ago, for free-ish, on a channel you probably already have.
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