I have a new favorite type of true crime documentary. Ones that were once featured on the Robert Stack version of Unsolved Mysteries have a certain connection with me. I watched the entire catalog of episodes back in 2021. The true crime documentary Still Missing Morgan is a case featured on the classic 1990s television show we all watched once The Price is Right was over.
We’re early into 2023 but already I feel like Still Missing Morgan will be the darkest of the year. It’s very similar to The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann without the same level of blame on the parents.
Morgan Nick has been abducted right from under the nose of her mother at a little league baseball game in mid-1990s Arkansas. It’s a similar time period and place as West Memphis made famous in the Paradise Lost trilogy. While Still Missing Morgan isn’t quite at that level, it’s a dark documentary worth watching. More than anything, this series helps get the word out about this unsolved crime and details about the case. This includes details of the red truck and whether the driver was the one who abducted her.
What was good about Still Missing Morgan
In four parts, we get the actual events of the kidnapping followed by the investigations shortly after and in the present day. This is an ongoing investigation with two primary suspects. The way the documentary presents the suspects is done well. We weave between the past and present while also adding in the story of another missing child, Jacob Wetterling. The mother of Morgan has befriended Jacob’s mother. Like some other true crime documentaries, at times this one deviates from the main story and presents us with a similar one.
I actually like it when true crime documentaries do this. Rather than go through the motions, we see how similar cases have unfolded. No One Saw A Thing is a perfect example of this done well. I avoided that documentary for a good year because I knew about the case already. However, the filmmaker’s decision to add in other crimes in the same town made it one of the best I’ve seen.
Still Missing Morgan is a documentary crossed between a newsy feature and one of the more glamorous ones you’ll usually find on Netflix. There aren’t any fun moments throughout this one or even a single sassy journalist. It’s dark from start to finish. If that’s what you’re in the mood for, you’ll find yourself intrigued and eager to find out what happens next.
What could have made Still Missing Morgan better
There were, at times, moments when I felt the docuseries began to drag. Each episode is close to an hour. Knocking out a few minutes from each could have made this better. It gets repetitive after a while.
This could have definitely been a single film instead of four parts. I did like it a lot though. Sometimes a story is best told over a period of several shorter versions than one longer marathon.
Still Missing Morgan would have only benefitted from leaving a bit of the footage on the cutting room floor. There are no twists or turns in this one. It’s pretty straight forward and yet good enough to keep my MTV attention.
Is Still Missing Morgan worth watching?
Definitely. I was in the mood for a dark documentary like The Keepers. Netflix has recently decided to only add in foreign language films which are pretty hard to pay attention to while working. The subtitles wouldn’t even work for me when watching Still Missing Morgan. Fortunately, it was all in English. I was hooked almost all of the way through with only a few fleeting moments of wishing they picked up the pace.
Overall Score: 9 out of 10
This is an incredibly well done documentary about a case I already knew a little bit about. We don’t get the resolution we want in the end. For this reason, it’s one that may stick with viewers longer.
Practically Trouble 