Then I was happy, because I caught a rerun of City Confidential, narrated by the dearly departed Paul Winfield. A&E used to run back-to-back episodes of City Confidential and American Justice at lunchtime every day, and the 2-hour-block of murder and mayhem and grisly dark humor used to fill me with such unspeakable joy.
Then, they replaced it with fictional crime shows, which are never as delightfully unbelievable as real life crime stories. When someone writes a show, they try to make it "plausible," something that real-life criminals don't burden themselves with. But the Biography channel brought back my favorite lunchtime ritual, and for that I am thrilled.
Yesterday's episode was titled "Green Bay: Terror in Titletown." Some genius murdered his soon-to-be-ex-wife by strangling her and lighting her house on fire, which no one would ever guess could have been done by him - what with all their frequent public battles, her refusal to show up to court to grant him a divorce which was causing his girlfriend to leave him, oh, and the fact he was THE ARSON INVESTIGATOR. And lived five minutes from her house. And had been seen going into her house the night of the fire. But other than having motive, opportunity and the specialized knowledge necessary to commit the crime, NO ONE COULD EVER HAVE GUESSED it was him. Yet, they still needed his ex-girlfriend to trap him in a Las Vegas hotel room, wearing a wire, and get him to confess.
What I love most about the show is its ability to capture the character and feel of the communities in which the stories take place. It's like a travelogue and a crime show all in one. They don't just focus on the story's main players -- they interview the town gossips, the people who sit around in the sports bars, and (in the case of Green Bay) the guy who runs the local sausage shop. Then, they make the worst entendres and innuendos imaginable ("his story had more holes in it than the Lambeau Field parking lot had empty beer cans)and deliciously inappropriate jokes.
Why can't all shows be like City Confidential?
