![]() The correspondents, some near-comically telegenic, are good listeners the camera alternates between interviewer and interviewee, emphasizing empathetic connection. Mom,” a person whose smile would light up a room. ![]() The victim is introduced with images and remembrances from loved ones, and is often described as both an individual and a type: a “girly girl” or a “tomboy,” a dad who is also a “Mr. The tragedy is explained with plainspoken drama that stops just short of lurid. ![]() There’s an intro with a sturdy NBC anchor (“I’m Lester Holt”), and another intro from one of the correspondents that wistful scene-setting, of which Morrison’s is reliably the most poetic, swiftly whisks us off to somewhere intriguing. It’s comforting because it has a certain gentleness its format seems to wrap the hard stuff in several layers of bubble wrap. ![]() On TV, where vérité true crime and murder dramas abound, “Dateline,” whose stories are often equally disturbing, takes care to respect the viewer, and also the subjects. (Bill Hader’s love of “Dateline” is well documented, from his over-the-top Morrison impression to his uncanny, hilarious Josh Mankiewicz Twitter users post fan art and other tributes.) And it stands out for a reason. “Dateline” isn’t cool, exactly-it walks a fine line between stodginess and entertainment-but it’s somehow a mainstream stalwart and a cult favorite at once. 2 on Apple, and “Dateline NBC” is regularly a top-ten true-crime series on Spotify. Recently, two of the highest-charting podcast series have been from “Dateline”: “Killer Role” reached No. Perhaps relatedly, “Dateline,” in its great many forms-primetime, gratuitous syndication, streaming, and podcasts-is, for an exceptionally conventional network series, almost startlingly popular. It airs on NBC primetime Friday and some Saturday nights, and, when you tune in, you’re expecting something like what it reliably delivers: a young woman who disappears after a Halloween party, a luxury-car dealer murdered in his bed. “Dateline” began in 1992, and-though it’ll occasionally surprise you with an episode about the hunt for El Chapo or the race for the COVID vaccine-it has long focussed on true crime, and not the dreary kind. It’s about lazy beaches in Kauai, the desert of Arizona, a frostbitten pet cemetery.” On TV, and in podcasts, “Dateline” values narrative convention almost to the extent of a genre novel, and “Killer Role,” about an actress who plays a killer in a low-budget film and is then revealed to be a killer herself, could be said to be the ur-“Dateline” product: a murder story about a murder story within a murder story. In his previous “Dateline” podcast series “Mommy Doomsday,” which concluded in March, Morrison says, “This story is about a woman-about people around her dropping like flies. “Dateline” is all about story it often comes right out and says so, then reminds you again. a tale at once unbelievable and absolutely true.” “A lot of trouble, which you’ll hear about soon enough. Here, a 911 call is heard: a gun has gone off and a woman is in trouble. His introductions, which are particularly cinematic, often guide us to scenic American communities with danger lurking in the shadows. Soft acoustic guitar ambles in Morrison describes “thick and rain-drenched forests” and myths “as persistent as the rain.” “Dateline” has five correspondents, and Morrison, seventy-three, is perhaps its most iconic: tall, white-haired, genteel, and abundantly expressive, with a manner at once entirely showbiz and entirely sincere. “The Siskiyou mountain range of southwestern Oregon is a land of misty peaks and deep gorges, dirt roads that lead to nowhere,” its host, Keith Morrison, says, in sonorous, buttery tones. The new podcast series “Killer Role,” from the long-running TV news magazine “Dateline NBC,” begins-as we would hope-with lugubrious pizzazz. Photograph by Patrick Randak / Courtesy NBC “Dateline” has five correspondents, and Keith Morrison, seventy-three, is perhaps its most iconic.
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