The Case Against Adnan Syed

Interviews with old school friends, remembering a young woman frozen in time, were supplemented with animations of Lee. This was a potentially exploitative flourish that somehow landed the right side of mawkish. ... [Amy Berg] took a person who had been defined only by a terrible evil done to her – and the media carnival that followed with Serial – and restored her right to be remembered as a human being.

It probably won't generate its own obsession, and the chapter in the case is, through its first three hours, less compulsively devourable, but Berg's series has an approach to the story that's distinctive and satisfying in its own right.

It is, for the most part, an engrossing account, although the filmmakers employ one extremely questionable device to help illustrate what had only been heard, not seen, using animation as a visual aid during voiceover excerpts read from murder victim Hae Min Lee's diary.

While Serial kept listeners on tenterhooks from week to week, The Case Against Adnan Syed is a more granular and less wholly absorbing experience. Berg’s series is most riveting, and sad, when she puts the specifics of the case aside to focus on the people whose lives have been irrevocably damaged by Lee’s murder and its aftermath.

It is skilfully created, and mostly empathetically told by the director Amy Berg. And yet it’s still uncomfortable to watch.

Yes, for fans of true crime series, Berg’s documentary is a riveting exploration of the foibles of the justice system, especially when it comes to dealing with minority kids in a Baltimore suburb. For listeners of Serial, it’s literally an eye-opening experience. ... But whether or not that’s enough to warrant another look into a case that may ultimately be unsolvable, and one where potential rectification for Adnan is already working its way through the legal system, is less certain.

A broadcast that breaks no ground, that succeeds in re-airing exculpatory information about Syed but falls short as a documentary and as television. The Case Against Adnan Syed is a misbegotten rehash of a person whose renown belies that his story can’t sustain multiple retellings.