Anyone watching The Staircase remake? [Contains spoilers]

[MrsPelligrinoPetrichor]

I tried to search for an existing thread but the new AS is shockingly bad so thought I'd start one

Anyone watching this new series of the Netflix documentary? Colin Firth is really badly cast imo, everyone else is great.

It swings from being like a channel 5 Sunday afternoon film to really ,really graphic!

I've watched the first 3 episodes.

[Title edited by MNHQ to include spoiler warning]

I definitely got the sense Kathleen was in a very dangerous position in the bath! Really looked like he was about to drown her.

I'm finding it very boring after having watched the documentary. I'm not sure why they've redone it

We enjoyed it. Thought Colin Firth was very good. That ambiguous look to camera at the end! They definitely think that he did it. The time line was a bit confusing sometimes though, sometimes I wasn't sure if we were in 2011 or 2017.

And poor Sophie! Did that really happen?

Looking forward to watching the original documentary on Netflix now. I think I've watched the opposite way round from most of you. Think the doc came out a few years ago, is that right?

I think it was interesting that there was this massive sense of unfinished business and mystery re Kathleen, understandably.

TC’s performance was so entrancing - here was this complex, vivid woman with a very real interior life - and there’s this feeling of being robbed of her and her story being cut short. And then just this chaotic scrabbling about afterwards, the drama of everything.

I would like to say about 4-5 years ago it came out (the documentary I mean) - possibly more recently. I think they updated it with the 2017 situation around the initial pandemic kicking off.

I've still got two episodes to go.

I've just watched the final episode. So did the piece of filming where he says Kathleen didn't know about all the men actually happen? When he's asked directly if he killed her, he doesn't say "No, I didn't" he says "Kathleen's death was an accident".

I don't know how much artistic licence there was here. I've read that the french filmmakers weren't happy with the assertion that the editing of the documentary put him in too positive a light. Do they also dispute this bit too?

Either way he came across to me as a throughly unpleasant individual both in the doc and this series. Still not sure whether he did it though. I like that this series gave a voice and a personality to a Kathleen.

I finished this yesterday, and I really enjoyed it. I actually found the documentary (which I've gone back to) quite laboured, so it was good for the series to encapsulate some of the finer points, and also give weight and a personality to Kathleen, who from the documentary was very absent as a person.

I've not read up on the reviews of the series yet (damn work!) but I'm wondering if anyone knows if there is anything overt in the series that was either dramatization or conjecture? The Sophie thing for instance - did this happen? Have the girls confirmed they were going to be separated at one point? Was MP really a total dick to Todd after he got out and ended up being super close to Clayton? I'm guessing this was all poetic license to portray MP as less than favourable, but it would be interesting to know whether these are accepted facts in the case. I'm guessing the girls wouldn't necessarily admit to this fact and neither would Todd as I think they're still on side right? But Sophie could confirm/deny?

The owl theory was really interesting - I've never really given it much weight and thought it was a diversion tactic, but there is an element of it that could make sense.

What part of the jury do you all fall on? I think MP is a shady, complex man, but I'm still not 100% he murdered Kathleen, partially due to the incompetency of the SBI in not really finding anything to massively support it beyond the bisexuality (the absence of skull fracture stuff really blows my mind) and because if the series is to be believed, although MP was a bit of an aggressor at times family and friends appear to have always said the relationship was strong. I'm sure if I was deep dive I could be persuaded otherwise!

The owl theory was really interesting - I've never really given it much weight and thought it was a diversion tactic, but there is an element of it that could make sense

Yes, darn those pesky strangling owls😉

Wrt to motive, she could well have dumped him having found out she was now worth a lot less money, she had huge life insurance and he was used to living a certain lifestyle.

Yes, the strangled part was what made my blood boil! The whole way through we couldn’t work out what she had actually died of - there wasn’t enough blood loss, from what I remember no serious skull fractures - it was all about the cuts & grazes - they didn’t seem enough to have killed her.

Yes I was wondering what the actual cause of death was as well! Although I thought blood loss was mentioned towards the end of the documentary.

I couldn't believe the way the strangulation was casually dropped into the documentary with no further explanation or investigation!

Yeah, thoswas mind-blowing. But also, as someone said (can't remember now whether it was a lawyer or documentary maker) that someone doesn't kill someone then decades later kill someone else in the same way - it just doesn't happen like that

Why not? Nothing happens...until it does.

I dragged myself through most of this series and almost stopped bothering in episode 5 but by the very end of the finale I was pleased to have watched it. Colin Firth was excellent. One review said it was a performance lacking in any vanity and I think that’s right. He portrayed MP as self indulgent, entitled, delusional, manipulative, selfish, uncaring, at times cruel. Nailed it.

The point of the drama for me was partly to give Kathleen a face/voice/story and that was worth doing. It’s easy in the documentary to forget “the evidence” is the body of a woman who had feelings and a full life and people who loved her, and the pain, fear, trauma and horror of her death.

I recorded the drama a while back and I've only just got round to watching it, but I was wondering about the condition of Elizabeth Ratliffes body after the exhumation, wouldn't her corpse have been in an advanced state of decomposition after 20 years? The drama made it look like she was hardly decomposed at all.

I watched one episode. I wanted to love it. Because I like CF and rate him as an actor. Couldn't get into it.