Yet another example of how incompetent, racist, sexist and homophobic a large majority of the police are.
I'm watching on Britbox and the show is called "The Barking Murders" not "Four Lives". Doing a search for "The Barking Murders" on trakt, nothing shows up just in case someone else has this issue.
This was infuriating. First since it is a true story, it was just inconceivable the amount of lying the cops did to the families. It was beyond tragic or incompetence, but right up to just downright lazy lying and trying to just close the book.
The acting was impeccable but the script sucked. There was not enough on the victims. There was nothing about how major crimes and homicide got involved. There was nothing on what Port had been on probation for except a small scene that just adds to the lying the cops did to the first family just to close the book. It never covers the actual statement of the neighbor which you would've thought was very important but nothing but minor having him run from one station to the next. The court coverage was like a rush to close the whole story and shitty, too short and far more insulting to the viewers and in my opinion did almost no justice to the families or victims. Even the look Port gives to the first mother after the verdict is just poorly shot at a crappy angle and loses the impact it was hopefully meant to show.
It's a must watch in the sense this shows what a shit job lazy, incompetent and/or prejudiced cops (in this case homophobic) can screw an entire investigation resulting in more crimes. But it just could've been so much better written and it really should've been 5 episodes, one for each victim and one for the court. Just comes off as disrespectful as the cops were in the cases until major crimes got involved.
Shout by Milo123BlockedParent2022-01-12T15:11:15Z
TV as the 6th estate, completely damning of the police and a complete tour-de-force of a performance by Sheridan Smith. Stephen Merchant in an against-type role but Port is never glamourized. Essential.