The Staircase (Docuseries Review)

The Staircase
2004-2018 Canal+/Netflix
Docuseries
The Nicsperiment Score: 9/10

Author, Michael Peterson, dials 911 and frantically tells the operator that his wife, Kathleen, has fallen down the stairs. Police arrive upon the scene to find Kathleen dead...and the situation a bit suspicious. Kathleen lies at the bottom of the stairs, in an enormous pool of dried blood. This doesn't look like an accident. However, as little sense as Michael's story seems to make, the case the police build against Michael seems to make even less. As the case turns into the longest trial in North Carolina history, strange detail upon strange detail begins to see the light of day, some making Michael look more guilty, and others making Kathleen's final moments look more and more like an accident. How can a jury possibly rule on Michael's guilt or innocence, when no one can make sense of Kathleen's death?
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There are long-form true crime series, and then there is The Staircase. Filmed over the course of 17 years(!), The Staircase follows Michael Peterson, the family members who decide to stick with him, and Peterson's legal team, as they go through pre-trial, trial, post-trial, retrial. Throughout, director, Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, never picks a side, simply showing events like a fly on the wall. Indeed, the series finds its most-powerful moment in its final episode, when Peterson's sister-in-law unleashes a devastating critique of not only Peterson, but Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, and The Staircase. This is not a series for the faint of heart.
It's quite a feat that, though the show only directly follows those in support of Peterson, it doesn't demonize those that are against them, even though we are seldom able to see things through his opposition's point of view. What emerges is an enigmatic incident surrounding an enigmatic human. We are shown clearly how the justice system lets Peterson down. However, we are also shown how it seems that Peterson has groomed his adult children into both believing everything he says, and needing his support. Something always feels off, and yet Peterson was still clearly done wrong. While 13 50-minute episodes may seem a bit much for one case, after a one night binge, lamp light through a whiskey glass, and Jocelyn Pook's mysterious, haunted mansion score in your ears, it becomes clear that maybe even 13 isn't enough.
The reason is clear: there is no finality here. There is no closure. There is no victory. No one wins. No one can win. If someone who's seen The Staircase ever invents a (no disrupting past events) time machine, they won't be going back to see the dinosaurs. They'll be going back to look through the Peterson family's window on December 9, 2001.