True crime isn’t a TV genre abounding with taste. It’s inherently icky to dredge up real-life tragedy for entertainment, even when the execution is unassailable. And no matter how respectful its approach, every potboiler ripped from the headlines bears a 100 per cent risk of offending someone. The People v OJ Simpson (2016), based on the American football player’s murder trial in the killing of his wife and her boyfriend, was celebrated by critics for contextualising a terrible crime that became a tabloid sensation, but the victims’ families hated it.
This year’s Andrew Garfield miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven aspires to use a horrific double-murder as a vehicle for sensitively exploring that most secretive American religion: Mormonism. As I’m sure you can guess, many LDS church members have taken issue with the whodunnit.
