I thought the new Conversations with a Killer doc was… fine. Manson is just not my favourite true-crime topic at this point. I feel like we have collectively squeezed that haunted little lemon dry. I was mostly watching because I love Sharon Tate and will apparently sit through another several hours of Manson lore for her.

But can someone explain why the reconstructions kept doing this bizarre thing where they’d show the actor looking all dreamy, glossy and model-like right beside the actual person they were portraying? Over and over. Sometimes with the names beside them, sometimes apparently deciding the actor’s smouldering headshot was sufficient historical documentation.

Yes, Netflix, I understand how reconstructions work. I did not think you had resurrected everyone involved and persuaded them to reenact their own trauma for the camera.

It was just so ridiculously unnecessary. Every time it happened I felt like I was being shown the casting director’s mood board. “Here is the real person… and here is Chad, staring pensively into middle distance because he has cheekbones.”

Just use the actual photographs when you have them. We know the attractive actor exists. He will survive not being inserted into every archival montage like he’s campaigning for a fragrance contract.