Doc Watch: The Ashley Madison Affair (2023)

Watched:  07/22/2024

Format:  Hulu

Viewing:  First

Director:  ABC News?

Uh.  Yeah.  If I was ABC News (this doc lives on Hulu), I'd be looking into whether suing Netflix were a possibility.  This series interviews a stunning number of the same subjects, and even pulls the same quotes as the Netflix doc, but is from several months to a year before.

But this is "news" or "documentary", so a legal case can't probably be made.  

Anyway - of the two docs, this one is the less juicy way to deliver exactly the same information.  It does seem they interviewed real users of the site, male and female, and then had actors re-create the transcript so as not to expose the users - and while it's a bit clunky and has an "I'm ACTING!" vibe from time to time at least you're not stuck with morons.  

There's also interviews with real users like a journalist who started doing a story on Ashley Madison and then found himself about to fulfill the site's promise.  And a bit about a near-miss of a case that would have exposed Ashley Madison's fake profiles well before the data hack - which I can't sort why Netflix didn't get into that.

There's also a name named for who was a suspect, until that trail reaches a literal dead end.  And a suggestion that maybe the guy's online pals may have been behind this.  

Of the two, I don't really have an opinion which one I'd recommend.  This feels like - had they worried more about a complete picture - getting more former employees on camera, etc...  it would feel more complete.   But this one also feels marginally more interested in trying to look like the product of a news organization and I suspect that has a lot to do with how it's managed.  But at the same time, feels maybe more... naive?

I dunno.  Neither of these are great.