Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel

A death metal rocker named Morbid eventually calls LA the Portal to Hell and yeah, that seems about right. I've seen YouTube takedowns about Elisa better than this series, but what this does better is it approaches the problems of mental health and social media personality in a sobering manner that does ring true and ask the right questions. I must also ask again, Why is every body of water in LA somehow also the pool from Sunset Blvd., a chasm of the soul asking to be drowned out?

The stupidity of the 'sleuths' IS the story, obviously.

The way you make this series last for four episodes is to disregard all the most obvious questions that you'll be asking as you are watching it and getting to them in the next episode or the next. This drags on so much in a completely unnecessary way.

If you view this as a story about the mystery surrounding Elisa Lam's disappearance, I say this is terrible. It's very intriguing for the first couple of episodes, until you realize that the mystery is almost entirely manufactured (sort of accidentally in real life). But if you view this from prism of an interesting look into the emergence of the YouTube "sleuth" culture, it's interesting if only half-baked.

What does this bring to the table that hasn't been covered in the million YouTube videos on the subject? Lots of pointless tangents to stretch out the runtime and aggressive vilification of homeless and poor people for the sake of red herrings even though the documentarians know full well they had nothing to do with it (plus one woman who looks distractingly identical to Kim from Better Call Saul, she's even dressed the same and has the same hair, it's uncanny)

1 hour of content stretched over 4

A terribly boring drawn out series about the disappearance of Elisa Lam. It's infuriating to watch these "internet detectives" create and draw out manufactured drama that isn't there. It would've been better sorted as a one off 60 minute documentary without the internet sleuths or a 2 or 3 part series focusing on the hotel itself.

This could have easily been a documentary film rather than a limited series. As fascinating as it is to try and decipher what happened to this poor young woman, it becomes equally infuriating by the end when you see not only how much time and resources were wasted following false leads, but how exploitative these "internet detectives" became over the tragedy.

Another Netflix shaggy dog story that drags a potentially interesting tale well past its natural limit. The case is intriguing, and the first episode (set up) and last episode (reveal) are worth a watch. The problem is the filler in the middle, 50% of the series focused on Internet 'sleuths' and their hare-brained theories on what happened. Their presence is about as welcome to a criminal investigation as Derek Acorah's, and adds nothing to the story whatsoever.

Some cracking one-liners.