It seems all the History Channel's investigative reports rely on about four things...
1) Repeat yourself ten or more times.
2) Make every piece of evidence a huge or incredible 'discovery'.
3) Just plain copy what was already known and act like you found it.
4) Treat every piece of useless evidence as though it is the big break.
Every time the guys in the field run into another big clue, I seemed to already know the answer from reading lots and lots of other stuff on the Zodiac killer. For example, when they 'discovered' that victim Paul Stine had drove about 3.2 miles from where he picked up the killer, I already had the answer, from the Theater District. This is not new material... The 'investigators' started bouncing around a few guesses and concluded it was, wait for it, the Theater District. And just like in the god awful 'Hunting Hitler' series, these guys would run off to anywhere with the smallest amount of evidence and of course, prove absolutely nothing. And of course the police stations and the FBI were more than happy to turn over evidence so these 'experts' could waltz out the door with it to read in their spare time. Are they crazy ? No one in their right mind lets evidence walk out the door like what was portrayed. On a still open case. The police acted like finally, someone was finally going to solve the case they couldn't solve for the last 50 years. I was waiting for these 'investigators' to get thrown out of the station. The 'investigators' said that one cop had been trying to solve the case forever, but he was only a patrolman who responded to the scene, not an actual police investigator like a detective. The local cop may have wondered I am sure to who did this, but it just ain't his job to solve crimes... And then you got the other crew at the small 'rent an office' playing around with a super computer that actually makes noises and stuff when working (sure it does), who feed in the most stupidest stuff so the computer can find the killer. And all it does is produce a stupid poem. It never does crack the 'Z340" cryptogram. One of the guys calls the office at midnight to tell someone there that he solved it. How did he know that anyone was there ? And you can tell it was staged because, 'thank the Lord', a camera crew was there to record the scene. Sure they were.... Any good camera crew would be at the local bar swilling away, laughing at these imbeciles they are told to film. And the other 'experts' with the super computer, mainly just sit around and agree with whatever the moron in charge has to say... The narrator has to tell us at least 150 times when and where the murders took place, we are shown at least 50 times the sketch made of the Zodiac killer, and after every commercial, and at the start of every episode, we are brought up to date on the 'investigation', ad nauseam ... Totally unnecessary. So the guy figures out the code and then can't tell us what it says until he contacts the CIA... Sure he does... A paid actor is the CIA agent and he almost immediately agrees that this guy has the answer. The CIA ? What in the hell do they care ??? And the truth be told, everything they cover in 5 episodes, at 42 minutes each episode, could have been told in about 15 minutes real time without all the repetition, idiotic drama, stupid film shots off the "investigator" lighting up another smoke or traffic around San Francisco... A totally useless documentary that should be avoided, look up Zodiac on the internet, read the book by Graystone, see the movie, you will get much more info than this ridiculous attempt by the History Channel to solve a case. It is really just an embarrassing laugh...
Every time the guys in the field run into another big clue, I seemed to already know the answer from reading lots and lots of other stuff on the Zodiac killer. For example, when they 'discovered' that victim Paul Stine had drove about 3.2 miles from where he picked up the killer, I already had the answer, from the Theater District. This is not new material... The 'investigators' started bouncing around a few guesses and concluded it was, wait for it, the Theater District. And just like in the god awful 'Hunting Hitler' series, these guys would run off to anywhere with the smallest amount of evidence and of course, prove absolutely nothing. And of course the police stations and the FBI were more than happy to turn over evidence so these 'experts' could waltz out the door with it to read in their spare time. Are they crazy ? No one in their right mind lets evidence walk out the door like what was portrayed. On a still open case. The police acted like finally, someone was finally going to solve the case they couldn't solve for the last 50 years. I was waiting for these 'investigators' to get thrown out of the station. The 'investigators' said that one cop had been trying to solve the case forever, but he was only a patrolman who responded to the scene, not an actual police investigator like a detective. The local cop may have wondered I am sure to who did this, but it just ain't his job to solve crimes... And then you got the other crew at the small 'rent an office' playing around with a super computer that actually makes noises and stuff when working (sure it does), who feed in the most stupidest stuff so the computer can find the killer. And all it does is produce a stupid poem. It never does crack the 'Z340" cryptogram. One of the guys calls the office at midnight to tell someone there that he solved it. How did he know that anyone was there ? And you can tell it was staged because, 'thank the Lord', a camera crew was there to record the scene. Sure they were.... Any good camera crew would be at the local bar swilling away, laughing at these imbeciles they are told to film. And the other 'experts' with the super computer, mainly just sit around and agree with whatever the moron in charge has to say... The narrator has to tell us at least 150 times when and where the murders took place, we are shown at least 50 times the sketch made of the Zodiac killer, and after every commercial, and at the start of every episode, we are brought up to date on the 'investigation', ad nauseam ... Totally unnecessary. So the guy figures out the code and then can't tell us what it says until he contacts the CIA... Sure he does... A paid actor is the CIA agent and he almost immediately agrees that this guy has the answer. The CIA ? What in the hell do they care ??? And the truth be told, everything they cover in 5 episodes, at 42 minutes each episode, could have been told in about 15 minutes real time without all the repetition, idiotic drama, stupid film shots off the "investigator" lighting up another smoke or traffic around San Francisco... A totally useless documentary that should be avoided, look up Zodiac on the internet, read the book by Graystone, see the movie, you will get much more info than this ridiculous attempt by the History Channel to solve a case. It is really just an embarrassing laugh...