YMMV / Forensic Files

• Aluminum Christmas Trees: In "All That Glitters is Gold", the AK-47 rifle used by the killer is reported as using 5.56 mm NATO rounds. This may seem like a research error at first, but there are AK variants chambered for 5.56 mm NATO.
• Anvilicious:
  • Excluding the Formula Breaking Episodes, it's a series that tries to discourage people from committing crimes, and 90% of episodes rub the Stock Aesop of "Don't commit crimes" in your face.
  • The series is particularly unsubtle in its message about the value of forensic evidence, treating it like the best thing since sliced bread. The ending of each episode is invariably a montage of the cops, prosecutors, and the victim's loved ones all thanking the forensics team for solving the case, while also declaring that they hope the criminals suffer in prison.
  • In "Death by a Salesman," a grandmother was murdered by a burglar who just walked into her house through the unlocked front door. At the end of the episode, one of the interviewees lectures the audience at length about the importance of locking your doors.
  • "Water Logged" holds no punches on why you should never accept rides from strangers.
  • In "The Black Hole", one of the investigators interviewed attributes the killer's numerous mistakes to his copious alcohol and marijuana use.
  • The second half of "Full Circle" from Forensic Files II made it their top priority to reaffirm the viewer every three minutes that just because the killer was trans, this was not a reflection of trans people. While some might think this was necessary, a week prior, they documented a murder committed by a gay man and they didn't do the same thing for him.
  • "Deadly Knowledge" makes it absolutely clear where the investigators, experts, and scriptwriters stand on prostitution as a career choice, all but outright blaming the victim for so much as taking an interest.
• Better on DVD: Given the slow cadence of the interviews and Peter Thomas' narration, the episodes are still perfectly coherent at 2x speed on YouTube. Without ads and commercials, you can ingest a half-hour episode in 10-12 minutes if you wish.
• Broken Base:
  • The speech at the end of "Deadly Knowledge" is very divisive. Detractors have vilified it as an egregious case of Blaming the Victim and Disposable Sex Worker. Others, however, view it as a poignant This Is Reality speech.
  • The four special hour long episodes from the original series ("See No Evil", "Payback", "The Buddhist Monk Murders", and "Eight Men Out") are some of the most divisive episodes of the series. Some fans despise them for the use of Peter Dean as a narrator, who served as a Replacement Scrappy to Peter Thomas. Other fans rank them as some of the best episodes in the series due to having some of the most intense subject matter in the series and are willing to look past Thomas' absence even if they agree it would've been better with him.
  • Forensic Files II, the revival series, has suffered this among fans of the series. Some view Bill Camp as a worthy successor to Peter Thomas, while others think he lacks the combination of subtlety and emotion that made Thomas great. Also, some viewers feel that the music and editing are not up to par with the standards set by the classic episodes.
• Genius Bonus: A subtle wink to viewers who have been to the Limerick area of Pennsylvania is given at the beginning of "Shopping Spree" when they show Manderach Park, the same name as the victim.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • "Small Town Terror" is openly dismissive of any possibility that the alleged perpetrator could be innocent. An investigation in 2018 by The Nation called the only forensic evidence of his guilt into question, and his case was taken up by the Innocence Project.
  • "Shot of Vengeance" is a Formula-Breaking Episode about a woman who was injected with HIV-tainted blood by a spurned ex-lover. The crime of intentionally giving someone HIV has come under tremendous fire over the years, with even the ACLU getting involved.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: A Dr. N. Haskell appears in one episode as a forensic enthomologist.
• Informed Wrongness: Many fans have noticed that the show often harshly condemns innocents for not having a verifiable alibi or not remembering where they were at a specific time.
• Narm:
  • In "Deadly Valentine", the victim's husband was filmed in the interview room at the police station. While the voiceover says that he was grief-stricken in the aftermath, his "grief" had him rocking back and forth and saying, "Please help me!" in an unconvincing Cold Ham manner. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that he was the one who killed her.
  • In "Hell's Kitchen", the victim's husband had a Freak Out over her death by crying out, "THOSE GODDAMN BLACK SHOES!" after she apparently slipped and fell down the basement stairs because of her shoes. As you might guess, the performance came off as fake to the detectives, and he was eventually proven to have killed her.
  • Several older episodes cite hobbies such as Dungeons & Dragons and heavy metal as possible motives or proof that a killer was capable of murder, in a bizarre invocation of Satanic Panic.
• Nightmare Fuel: It's a series that documents investigations of murders, and it even shows images of dead bodies and murder scenes, which can be very unsettling to some.
• Paranoia Fuel:
  • It's implied this is what caused most of the affected businesses to fail in "Bio Attack: Oregon Cult Poisonings". Even when it was proven the titular cult had caused the salmonella outbreaks, the people of the town just couldn't eat with confidence any longer.
  • The show itself serves as this for potential criminals. In "Marked for Life," Peter Thomas downright says, "You can run... but you can't hide."
  • "Undertaken" has a uniquely disturbing one where a man was hired for a job for the sole purpose of establishing a life insurance policy on him then killing him.
  • Some of the Make It Look Like an Accident plans are so well-crafted and nearly succeed that it makes one wonder how many homicides were written off as accidents.
  • Certain episodes ("Reel Danger", "Squires Riches", and "Cereal Killer" for example) reveal someone else was the intended target, but had to change plans.
• Periphery Demographic: Viewers with no interest in forensic science may still find the show enjoyable for the stories themselves, which tend to be loaded with Plot Twists and Wham Lines, plus oodles of Narm. Conversely, other viewers may be less interested in the true crime aspects but fascinated by the forensic science.
• Retroactive Recognition: A few episodes feature Trey Gowdy a few years before he became a United States Congressman, as the prosecutor in the cases.
• Special Effect Failure: The shots of the train crash in "Visibility Zero" are obviously made with HO models.
• Spiritual Successor: Not the entire series, but certain episodes can be viewed as sequels to their case's respective Unsolved Mysteries episode.
• Spoiled by the Format:
  • If a case has seemingly been solved with half of the episode or more to go, it's obvious that there's more to it.
  • If an accused person is used for interview segments, they almost never committed the crime. The reverse also tends to happen; if a person's name is mentioned but they aren't present in interviews, it's likely that they were guilty of the crime. However, this is sometimes subverted when the guilty party is interviewed from jail, often with the camera at an angle that avoids revealing this until near the episode's end.
  • The show will often show pictures of the gravestones of the deceased. If a married woman's stone has only her maiden name, the husband was usually her murderer.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: Despite the murder and violence, some fans of the show admit to using it as background noise to fall asleep to, due to Peter Thomas' calm and soothing voice. His II replacement, Bill Camp, seems to be a contender for this as well.
• That One Attack: The show treats succinylcholine as this. Each time it's brought up, the fact that it breaks down almost instantly in the body and is therefore considered untraceable is mentioned, complicating the investigation until the special technique that can trace it is used.
• Unintentional Period Piece: "Innocence Lost" has the investigators agonizing over how to find which store manufactured a sweater with Big Bird on it, only getting lucky because one of the investigators collected catalogs from the exact store that sold it, JCPenney. Nowadays, a quick Google search would provide the answer.
• Values Dissonance:
  • "Pastoral Care" is about how the investigators were absolutely certain that the alleged bite mark on Donna Payant's body was evidence of Lemuel Smith's guilt. Not even two seasons later, this evidence would be called junk science in "Once Bitten" claiming it's only exclusionary not confirmatory. This alongside Payant's sister's insistence Smith is innocent and Smith himself explaining his claim he would murder again was made while he was on medications would make modern viewers see him at the very least worthy of a retrial.
  • Viewers in the 2020s may see "Without a Prayer" as a bit tasteless in its portrayal. The episode paints Madalyn Murray O'Hair as an evil person and an Asshole Victim simply due to the fact that she was an atheist, and even subtly implies that she got what was coming to her. While O'Hair was certainly an abrasive person with many faults, the amount of victim blaming this episode engages in is pretty uncalled for.
  • Quite a few episodes, especially in the early seasons, tend to imply that being accused of a crime must mean you're guilty of something even if evidence is lacking. It isn't uncommon in these episodes for detectives/prosecutors to react with frustration and disappointment when a suspect is ruled out. This can come across as pretty gross watching through a modern lens.

---