Re: Disappointed in the ID Network Re Dr. Jeff Mac... - Page 3

chrystaltree · ‎05-10-2010

They make them because people watch them. People seem to have a never ending facscination with those cases. I don't even remember the Fatal Vision mini series and I don't remember much about the McDonald case. I know the "big picture" of course but like the Mendendez case, there are facets that I know nothing about. So, I'll probably watch it. But I'll never ever watch another Oj or Jonbenet movie. I have to say there's absolutely nothing "educational" about those shows and no one even pretends to watch them for that purpose. It's all just entertainment and blood, guts and courtroom drama. Nothing more, nothing less.

Fifi1 · ‎03-10-2010

Fatal Vision was well done for a TV mini series and certainly scared me! I was a new bride living in NC at Camp Lejeune, not too far from Fayettville, NC. I was home alone watching the mini series and creeped out! I never wanted to believ he did it! His inlaws defended him for a long while and then didn't. So sad a momma and her little kids killed like that.

Kacee1115 · ‎06-12-2010

I had forgotten all about that movie - it was GREAT - Karl Malden!!!

Pearlee · ‎06-11-2011

@Kacee1115 wrote:
I had forgotten all about that movie - it was GREAT - Karl Malden!!!

@Kacee1115 It was an excellently done movie. The cast was terrific and Gary Cole was just perfect as MacD.

@Moonchile, I had no idea when I started this thread that MacGinnis had written a second book, Final Vision. You are probably right, then, that this new ID show is based on that book, in which case I retract what I wrote in my first post about how I think the title of this series is so awful (ripping off Fatal Vision as I had thought). Of course, I only retract what I wrote if in fact this new version is based on the book with that title!

For those who don't know, when Joe McGuinnis decided to write Fatal Vision, he thought MacDonald was innocent. It was his interviews with the doctor himself that convinced McGuinnis that MacDonald was guilty. I think the evidence definitely proves him to be guilty.

@BalletBabe, yes I'm aware of Charles Manson being near death, as I read the thread about it on this board, after which I Googled it too. So there is a thread here about that too.

mousiegirl · ‎03-09-2010

@SydneyH wrote:
@KathyPet wrote:
Some people simply refuse to believe that there are some truly sick and twisted people in this world especially if they appear normal. The Menendez Brothers, Scott Petersen, Jeffrey McDonald, Ted Bundy are among them.
Not in my case, I know they exist.....however, there are some troubling inconsistencies in the Petersen and McDonald cases, ones that the prosecution went through great lengths to ignore.

@SydneyH Did you ever see the interview of the way MacDonald acted after he murdered his wife and children on the ****** Cavett show, despicable!

Moonchilde · ‎05-23-2010

@Pearlee wrote:
@Kacee1115 wrote:
I had forgotten all about that movie - it was GREAT - Karl Malden!!!
@Kacee1115 It was an excellently done movie. The cast was terrific and Gary Cole was just perfect as MacD.

@Moonchile, I had no idea when I started this thread that MacGinnis had written a second book, Final Vision. You are probably right, then, that this new ID show is based on that book, in which case I retract what I wrote in my first post about how I think the title of this series is so awful (ripping off Fatal Vision as I had thought). Of course, I only retract what I wrote if in fact this new version is based on the book with that title!

For those who don't know, when Joe McGuinnis decided to write Fatal Vision, he thought MacDonald was innocent. It was his interviews with the doctor himself that convinced McGuinnis that MacDonald was guilty. I think the evidence definitely proves him to be guilty.

@BalletBabe, yes I'm aware of Charles Manson being near death, as I read the thread about it on this board, after which I Googled it too. So there is a thread here about that too.

@Pearlee, I’m not meaning to contradict you, as I believed the same as you, that McGinniss went into it believing that MacDonald was innocent. In his short “Final Vision” wrap-up “book” of 77 pages which I finished last night, McGinniss said at the beginning of it that it was widely reported/assumed/publicized that he believed in McDonald’s innocence at first and “changed his mind” to guilty later. He said that wasn’t true, that he had no opinion when he was “hired”, and came to the guilty conclusion during the trial.

He also said that he only came to realize later that MacDonald was playing him from Day One. One example - MacDonald told MacGinniss that he had chosen only him as “the” person who could “write his story” - and later learned that he’d sent essentially the same letter to Joseph Wambaugh and other high profile writers. Every more experienced writer/reporter/ex-cop turned MacDonald down, smelling much fishiness.

I read one comment that Final Vision (series/episode) is “about the relationship between MacDonald and McGinniss” - which sounds like it is based on the new book. It could be McGinniss’ attempt at reminding people - hey, don’t believe this dude.

Now that I’ve read this last book (published at the end of 2012) of McGinniss’, I’m very interested in just how and what will be said in the TV movie.

Life without Mexican food is no life at all

Pearlee · ‎06-11-2011

@Moonchilde wrote:
@Pearlee wrote:
@Kacee1115 wrote:
I had forgotten all about that movie - it was GREAT - Karl Malden!!!
@Kacee1115 It was an excellently done movie. The cast was terrific and Gary Cole was just perfect as MacD.

@Moonchile, I had no idea when I started this thread that MacGinnis had written a second book, Final Vision. You are probably right, then, that this new ID show is based on that book, in which case I retract what I wrote in my first post about how I think the title of this series is so awful (ripping off Fatal Vision as I had thought). Of course, I only retract what I wrote if in fact this new version is based on the book with that title!

For those who don't know, when Joe McGuinnis decided to write Fatal Vision, he thought MacDonald was innocent. It was his interviews with the doctor himself that convinced McGuinnis that MacDonald was guilty. I think the evidence definitely proves him to be guilty.

@BalletBabe, yes I'm aware of Charles Manson being near death, as I read the thread about it on this board, after which I Googled it too. So there is a thread here about that too.

@Pearlee, I’m not meaning to contradict you, as I believed the same as you, that McGinniss went into it believing that MacDonald was innocent. In his short “Final Vision” wrap-up “book” of 77 pages which I finished last night, McGinniss said at the beginning of it that it was widely reported/assumed/publicized that he believed in McDonald’s innocence at first and “changed his mind” to guilty later. He said that wasn’t true, that he had no opinion when he was “hired”, and came to the guilty conclusion during the trial.

He also said that he only came to realize later that MacDonald was playing him from Day One. One example - MacDonald told MacGinniss that he had chosen only him as “the” person who could “write his story” - and later learned that he’d sent essentially the same letter to Joseph Wambaugh and other high profile writers. Every more experienced writer/reporter/ex-cop turned MacDonald down, smelling much fishiness.

I read one comment that Final Vision (series/episode) is “about the relationship between MacDonald and McGinniss” - which sounds like it is based on the new book. It could be McGinniss’ attempt at reminding people - hey, don’t believe this dude.

Now that I’ve read this last book (published at the end of 2012) of McGinniss’, I’m very interested in just how and what will be said in the TV movie.

@Moonchilde - and I'm not meaning to contradict you at all - truly - but I could swear that I heard what I posted above, right from the mouth of McGinnis during an interview with him on TV! Of course, it was years ago, when he was promoting either his book or the mini series on TV, and possibly said that only to gin up publicity at the time. But I'm really pretty sure I heard from him during an interview about thinking MacD. innocent until he started interviewing him. Oh well...the whole thing happened quite a while ago, memories and stories can change, and not necessarily intentionally.

McGinnis could have been doing a "Brian Williams" LOL to enhance the story when he was promoting the book or movie. Or...my memory could be faulty but I'm pretty sure I was watching McGinnis on TV talking about all this. At any rate, I enjoyed his book Fatal Vision, which I had read even before the Gary Cole movie. I was "into" all those kinds of books ever since I read Bugliosi's excellent Helter Skelter.

No wonder I watch so much of the ID Network!

Moonchilde · ‎05-23-2010

It’s sure possible, @Pearlee - after all, you wouldn’t think much, back in the day of the original book (might well be different now, heaven knows), of someone who went into it believing the guy was guilty - it’s just logical that he wouldn’t say he’d taken it on not thinking MacDonald was innocent, otherwise it would look like a railroad job. I think that through the years McGinniss got older and a lot wiser about many things.

I thought Fatal Vision was a good book, and the mini-series did a brilliant job of concentrating on the physical evidence. It was hard physical evidence, period, that convinced me - bloodstains and puncture holes that could lead to only one conclusion forensically. Lack of DNA evidence that random strangers ever entered the house/had anything to do with the bodies of the murdered. The case for him not being guilty, the grasping-at-straws maybe this happened, maybe that happened - has been created solely bt MacDonald himself - and he has changed his stories, too. He’s always searching for anyone he can con.

I always admired (and felt sorry for) Bugliosi. I had a hard time reading the book alone at home, only a few years after the murders occurred. Living in LA, it was very “close to home” - and we’ve aways known that there were “family members” who were never arrested, out there ready to do it again it was thought at the time.

I have mixed feelings about all these programs about famous murder cases. On the one hand, some of them have been done to death. OTOH, just because you and I and others our age remember the murders and trials first-hand, younger people don’t know anything about these infamous crimes, so depending upon how they’re done, I see a value/point to them for others who were too young to know or remember.

Life without Mexican food is no life at all

mousiegirl · ‎03-09-2010

I don't know how it matters if the younger generation knows about these very old cases, there are so many in their generation that have occurred. Many of these crimes were against their own family members, again, doesn't really help the new generation to know these cases. Also, everything is online for anyone to view if they ever had an interest, which is why I don't see the point of rehashing these old cases, and so many times.

Moonchilde · ‎05-23-2010

@mousiegirl wrote:
I don't know how it matters if the younger generation knows about these very old cases, there are so many in their generation that have occurred. Many of these crimes were against their own family members, again, doesn't really help the new generation to know these cases. Also, everything is online for anyone to view if they ever had an interest, which is why I don't see the point of rehashing these old cases, and so many times.

By that line of thinking, no one should write a true crime book either, or bios of murderers, because no one should want to know anything about them, and if they do there’s something wrong with them.

I don’t think reading about (in)famous murders is meant to help people in any way - nor is 90% of all television broadcast daily; it’s to entertain and inform.

If there was no audience and no ratings, they wouldn’t be making the shows. It’s an extension of the mindset viewers have for other reality TV, and doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon.

I take from it what I want and ignore the rest.

Life without Mexican food is no life at all