Something that caught my eye on Netflix last week, was the much-anticipated documentary that follows the days and months since the disappearance of 3-year old Madeleine McCann. It is known to be one of the most compelling mysteries of a missing child case, due to the publicity following the family, as well as how the events of the night don’t quite add up. When I first heard about the documentary, I was a little sceptical as to what it could uncover that was not already known to the general public. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this documentary did not live up to its much anticipated ‘new theories’ and did not actually add anything new to the case.
Image from Getty
Firstly, there did not need to be 8-parts to this documentary. When I first encountered the series, I wasn’t sure how they were going to fill this documentary with 8 hours of footage and evidence that would make it interesting, and if I’m honest I wasn’t wrong. A lot of the documentary was filled with irrelevant material about other missing child cases and information about the Algarve which didn’t really add anything to the series. Additionally, the theories and evidence that are supposedly ‘new’ are mostly ridiculous and completely unbelievable, to the point in which it was impossible that they even happened.
Despite receiving a lot of criticism, I think what the documentary does well is to give the general public an insight into the days and months after Madeleine’s disappearance. I was completely shocked by the level of incompetency of the Portuguese police immediately after she disappeared. There were various opportunities they had in which they could have prevented the ‘so-called’ abductor leaving Portugal or gathered evidence to help the case. What I was most surprised about, was the 4-hour gap after Madeleine’s ‘abduction’ in which authorities did nothing to help the situation.
Image from Wiki
Overall, I think this documentary, is basically an 8-part series that tries to frame Kate and Gerry McCann for the disappearance of their missing child. It feels a lot of the time that the Portuguese Police were trying to blame the McCann’s for the things that they did not do to help the case. While I am yet to make my mind up about what happened that night, we, the general public will never know unfortunately. I am convinced that the McCann’s aren’t letting on everything that they know, but the only people that will truly know what happened to Madeline that night will never be found, which is deeply unsatisfying.
If you are curious, like I was, to know all the ins and outs of this case then I would highly recommend watching it. Although, be warned, it does not make for an easy watch.