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Koenig, producer of Serial) as inspirational. 1 The series has also even more recently been frequently recalled in conjunction with Netflix's Making a Murderer, as journalists and others hooked on the later films remember 'binge-watching' it in 2004. 2 The Staircase's director, Jean Xavier de Lestrade, on the back of the success of his earlier real-case documentary Murder on Sunday Morning (2001), was invited to follow and film the Peterson case as it progressed from hearing to trial, and was thus able to film events outside the courtroom as well as proceedings within it, notably inside Michael Peterson's family home each day after court business had concluded. Influential also because of the level of detailed scrutiny its length (eight 45-minute episodes) afforded its filmmakers, The Staircase is gripping because some of the more uncanny details (the revelation, for instance, that a friend of Peterson's and his adopted daughters' biological mother had died in a very similar way to Kathleen years earlier) seem too outlandish to be true, an issue that resurfaces in many true crime series as if to prove that reality can be stranger than Gone Girl. 3 Although de Lestrade was granted access to both legal sides, Durham Country District Attorney, James Hardin, was less keen than defence attorney David Rudolf and his team to let the cameras in; as a result, The Staircase ostensibly favours Peterson as we get to know that side of the case much bettera perennial issue for many similar documentaries, and one substantiated by the producer, Denis Poncet, when he confirmed that de Lestrade told him 'this is a great story, but I could only do it if I believed he was innocent'. The director saw that he 'had a film' only when it became obvious (to him) that Peterson was on trial 'because of the sort of man he was'that is, a bisexual married man who actively sought the

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