I'm here at work writing this, but all I want to do is go home and stare some more at The Staircase.
Not the stairs in my house.
After watching several episodes of The Staircase, a Netflix true crime documentary series, I've never been more grateful to live in a one-story structure.
And I'm also appreciative of my home's simple gas fireplace that doesn't require a blow poke. That's a fireplace instrument that allows one to blow at the fire while poking it from a safe distance and is featured in The Staircase. But that's all I'm saying. I'm not revealing anything.
Here's a spoiler-free description of The Staircase: Novelist Michael Peterson of Durham, N.C., is charged with murdering his wife, Kathleen.
Now, don't confuse Michael Peterson with Scott Peterson, convicted of killing wife Laci. And don't confuse Michael Peterson with Drew Peterson, convicted of killing his third wife (also named Kathleen); his fourth wife, Stacy, disappeared in 2007 and was never found. Why were all suspected wife-murderers of the 2000s named Peterson?
In Michael's case, which was apparently big, though I never heard of it before this series, Kathleen Peterson is found dead -- and really bloody, could all that really be the result of an accidental fall? -- at the bottom of the stairs in 2001. A film crew followed Peterson, his lawyers and his children leading up to and during legal proceedings.
Well, at least so far that's what The Staircase -- which Netflix released in June -- is about. I think maybe the BBC or some other network aired it at least partially in the past. And I'm not going to verify it, sorry. I dare not look up any facts for this column or face ruining the entire series. Sorry, I just can't blow (poke) the ending for myself, even if I've been sucked in to other true crime series -- The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, Waco, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story -- while knowing the outcome.
We're about eight episodes in -- we obsessively binge-watched three last Friday, two last Saturday and three last Sunday. We have five more to go.
After watching the first episode, we weren't sure that we were going to stick it out. Sure several trusted friends and co-workers separately recommended The Staircase to us, but we weren't feeling it initially.
It felt a bit Dateline-esque, which is by no means a dis -- how we love dramatic Keith Morrison and his satin-voice storytelling! But if one Dateline installment makes us impatient, how would we make it through the equivalent of 13 of them?
We were immediately put off by the quirky Peterson dude who seems too calm, collected and carefree for someone who just lost his cherished life partner and faced a life sentence. And initially we weren't finding all the early 2000s footage -- which is full of Pepsi One cans, Nancy Grace snippets and flip phones -- all that riveting.
However, by the start of Episode 2 -- "WAIT, PETERSON DID WHAT?!" -- we were hooked. We'd quickly realize that every time one of those flip phones rings with a retro tune, another kink will complicate the complex Staircase case even further.
But now we find ourselves again in the no-win situation of the weekend binge-watcher.
We're in a haze from spending much of the weekend watching something, but we didn't -- and didn't necessarily want to -- finish. We wanted episodes to savor later in the week.
But we can't watch during the week because we're too busy/tired in the evenings to watch multiple episodes like we'll want to. So we'll have to wait.
The only thing we want to talk about is the show, but we can't talk to anyone about it because they haven't watched it or -- worse -- they've watched it and will tell too much.
And now we have no choice but to spend much of this weekend watching the remainder. And we still won't be able to talk to most people about it. And, worst of all, it will be over.
The Staircase is making us a basket case.
I rest my case, email:
jchristman@arkansasonline.com
Spin Cycle is a weekly smirk at pop culture.
Style on 07/22/2018