Review: 'Polish Murder Secrets'

One of the fascinating aspects of watching television produced outside of the English-language axis of Australia, the United States and the UK is that you get the opportunity to see how familiar genre tropes are tweaked and reimagined to fit the standards of different audiences. 

Despite the ubiquity of an increasingly global culture, every country still retains its own unique take on society and one of the best ways to observe those differences is by looking at the way they produce various familiar genres of television.

Polish Murder Secrets is a six-part series that - not surprisingly - focuses on murders that have occurred in recent years in Poland. And true crime television fans will certainly spot a number of the familiar tropes of the genre in the episodes, which feature English subtitles but no English audio dub.

There is a mix of contemporary archival news coverage, some interviews with various law enforcement officials, friends and family. In some ways, an episode of Polish Murder Secrets doesn't look that different than what you'd see during an average hour or two of programming on Investigation Discovery.

But there are some structural differences, which I suspect have to do with the laws in Poland that govern how murder victims and their families can be portrayed in the press. Everyone's face is blurred out - victims, family, friends, nearly everyone in every picture used in the episodes. 

And while there are some law enforcement officials shown talking directly to the camera, those seem to be primarily retired investigators. A number of interviews with current officials are shot from the back, and occasionally cut to a close-up of their hands in order to emphasize a particular comment.

The episodes also in include recreations, but only minimally. Unlike American true crime TV productions, there aren't actors recreating conversations or pivotal moments in the case. There are some sparing shots of the accused shot from behind or at an angle that makes it impossible to see their faces. A similar approach is taken in other situations where an American producer would typically try and fill in the story gaps with recreated moments.

It's a very minimal approach to production and I can't quite decide if I find it better or worse than the more familiar American production style.

But the differences make Polish Murder Stories worth checking out, even just for an episode or two in order to see a different approach to a very familiar television genre.

Polish Murder Stories premiered Tuesday, November 14th, 2023 on Viaplay.