From Newsgroup: rec.arts.tv

Upon reading Robin's latest "Selected Programming", a three-part true
crime documentary called "Stalking Samantha: 13 Years of Terror" caught
my eye. I tracked it down and watched it in the wee hours this morning
when I couldn't get back to sleep.

It was about a woman named Samantha Stites who acquired a stalker named Christopher in her last year of college. The stalker's obsession with
her kept intensifying and finally - after 13 years - led to her being kidnapped and reckoning she was going to die that day.

The thing that struck me most - besides the fact of his obsession and
the things he did to keep an eye on her - was how long it took her to
really understand how potentially dangerous this guy was. All her
friends were aware of him stalking her and tried to warn her that this
guy was potentially dangerous. It took YEARS before she finally got a
PPO (Personal Protection Order = restraining order). But even that just
made him go dark until the PPO expired. He still kept in touch with her through an alias - unbeknownst to her - while the PPO was in effect.
Somehow, she just kept living her life, being annoyed by his frequent presence, mystified by how he kept encountering her. When she tried to
obtain a second PPO, she was refused because the court said she hadn't supplied enough to satisfy the judge that she was in danger. You might
assume from what I've written that she is not too bright but I didn't
come away with that impression despite the events. I don't understand
why she didn't do more to deter him, like get a big dog or a gun, learn karate, or get a boyfriend/husband that might help her.

Things finally came to a head in a home invasion and kidnapping that was largely inspired by the recent series You. I won't spoil the details for
you in case you want to see it. It was released on Hulu the other day
and has three parts of 42 minutes each.

HOLD THE PHONE! I went to IMDB to see what the rating for this
documentary is and found a listing with the exact same title as I've
cited *BUT* it describes it as a mini-series and shows pictures of
actors who I've never seen before. It looks very much as if a
documentary AND a miniseries WITH THE SAME TITLE were released more or
less simultaneously! I've seen cases before where different productions
were put together about the same events - for instance, the recent
productions about the plane crash over Lockerbie - but I've NEVER heard
of two productions with the exact same title coming out at the same
time, one as a documentary with the real participants and one with
actors re-enacting the events.

Let me be clear: this review is about the DOCUMENTARY, not the miniseries.
--
Rhino

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