Spector

The documentary does an excellent job of telling the story of Spector’s music career — economically but with sufficient context, and soundtracking, to understand both the textured quality of his music and the hell his performers went through to achieve it. ... But it’s in the parallel telling of Spector’s and Clarkson’s stories that “Spector” distinguishes itself within its genre. ... “Spector” corrects the record, not by inflating Clarkson’s work, but by illustrating the person that she was, in intriguing and moving counterpoint to her convicted killer. ... Viewers will not come to love Phil Spector, and that’s not the goal here. But will certainly know him.

Not every true-crime documentary series requires a four-episode arc to tell the story, but in the case of Showtime’s exceedingly well-crafted, meticulously researched and consistently compelling “Spector,” the overall running time is justified.

It is inevitable that his father's suicide when he was a child affected Spector. But it's good that this series isn't losing sight of the real victim here: Lana Clarkson.

The result is a gripping retelling of the story, with dollops of new perspectives and details along the way.

Phil Spector provides another cautionary tale about legacy – and what will lead one’s obituary – thanks to the four-part “Spector,” which seeks contextualize the producer’s musical genius in order to emphasize his erratic behavior and eventual murder conviction. Perhaps most notably, this Showtime docuseries gives near-equal time to victim Lana Clarkson, including how the media posthumously denigrated her.

At times, Spector doesn’t seem to know how to align the man’s competing legacies. But it does its best to portray a fuller picture of the woman who paid the ultimate price for his behavior.

The documentary is awash in questionable decisions that left me scratching my head instead of wanting to engage with any of the challenges in its portrait. There are weird aesthetic choices, limitations of structure and drawbacks to the self-selecting talking heads. Plus I’d argue that the choice of how to end the documentary undermines almost everything that came before.