'The Yogurt Shop Murders’ Did Everything Right, Except Please Its Audience

The Yogurt Shop Murders wrapped its four-episode series on HBO Max this week. The series took an unusual approach, centering as much on the grieving community as on the crime itself. It’s a rare true-crime documentary produced as much for the people involved in the case as for the audience watching. It’s designed to help the families of the four victims process their grief 34 years later, while also giving police officers and community members a chance to reflect on their mistakes.

It’s exactly the kind of true-crime documentary audiences often say they want: one that turns the camera on the genre, gives families space to voice their grief without exploitation, and digs into justice, memory, and false confessions.

Critics loved it—or at least the few who reviewed it did. There are only 11 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (including my own), but it holds a perfect 100 percent. It’s the kind of documentary critics often demand from true-crime.

But outside of critics, the reaction on Reddit and social media hasn’t been as kind. The reception reminds me of the 2012 film Killing Them Softly, Andrew Dominik’s bleak, post-recession drama disguised as a Brad Pitt heist movie. Audiences went in with certain expectations and left angry when those expectations weren’t met. The film earned a 72 percent on Rotten Tomatoes in an era when critics were more critical than they are now, but it also received a rare F Cinemascore.

That’s what I’m seeing with The Yogurt Shop Murders. Audiences expected a documentary about finding the killer or killers behind the grisly 1991 murder of four teenage girls in Austin. What they got was an unsolved crime and very few answers beyond one: Can police officers spell?

“I would have much rather the documentary focused on the details of the crime and confessions rather than the emotional side of things,” one Redditor wrote, reflecting the general consensus. “Snoozefest,” another said on Threads. “This is a VERY average documentary series, and that is being kind,” wrote another.

Most viewers were more interested in parsing the details and trying to solve the crime. That’s how audiences have been trained to consume true-crime documentaries about unsolved murders: as an opportunity to outwit the cops (not that it would’ve been particularly difficult with some of the officers interviewed) or to criticize the investigation (and the Austin police are an easy target here).

Even I’ll concede that, as much as I liked The Yogurt Shop Murders, its approach couldn’t sustain four episodes. I, too, hoped the final installment would offer more theories on the case rather than an extended interview with a grief counselor or a day in the life of one of the men unjustly imprisoned after giving a clearly false confession. (Aside: the third episode, focused on false confessions, is a strong companion to Hulu’s The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.)

It’s not that we don’t sympathize with the families—it’s maybe that we over-invest. We want answers, too. While this approach is smart for a documentary with no answers, it doesn’t erase the frustration. Sometimes, “there are no answers” is well intentioned and honest, but it’s not very satisfying. Audiences may say they want ambiguity and layers, but what they really want is to see the bad guy go to prison.