Sunday, June 1, 2025

'Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal' and 'The Truth vs. Alex Jones' lead nominees for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary


Happy June and happy Sunday! As I promised yesterday, I'm kicking off the month by examining the nominees for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary as the Sunday entertainment feature because Alex Jones is as much an entertainment story as he is a legal one.

The American Experience episode "Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal" earned three nominations at the News & Doc Emmy Awards and technically leads The Truth vs. Alex Jones with two nominations, but the situation mirrors the field for Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary because The Truth vs. Alex Jones's other nomination is for Best Documentary, which balances out "Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal" earning nominations for Outstanding Writing – Documentary and Outstanding Direction – Documentary in my handicapping, so both are tied in my book. The other nominees in this category, Cult Massacre: One Day In Jonestown, Into the Fire: The Lost Daughter, and Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer, have only this one nomination.

I'm going through the nominee's trailers in the order above, beginning with POISONED GROUND: THE TRAGEDY AT LOVE CANAL | Trailer | American Experience | PBS.

In the late 1970s, residents of Love Canal, a working-class neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, discovered that their homes, schools and playgrounds were built on top of a former chemical waste dump, which was now leaking toxic substances and wreaking havoc on their health. Through interviews with many of the extraordinary housewives turned activists, the film shows how they effectively challenged those in power, forced America to reckon with the human cost of unregulated industry, and created a grassroots movement that galvanized the landmark Superfund Bill.

POISONED GROUND: THE TRAGEDY AT LOVE CANAL tells the dramatic and inspiring story of the ordinary women who fought against overwhelming odds for the health and safety of their families.
When I first started teaching environmental science, one of the lab exercises was to watch a video about Love Canal and fill out a worksheet. That assignment disappeared the next time I taught the class, but the memory stuck with me. I'm too close to the end of my career and the actual episode is a touch too long to show in class, but I will definitely recommend this to my students for extra credit. Welcome to blogging as professional development.

Next, The Truth vs. Alex Jones | Official Trailer | HBO.

#TheTruthVsAlexJones chronicles the landmark defamation trials brought by Sandy Hook parents against Alex Jones.
Watching that makes me dislike Jones even more than when I gave him an honorary Kenny McCormick Memorial Medal for losing at least five accounts because of abuse. If this documentary wins an Emmy or two, it would make for a bookend to Sandy Hook Promise winning two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Commercial. I'd enjoy that.

I continue with the nominees that have just this one nomination with Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown | Official Trailer | Hulu.

Survivors and eyewitnesses tell the immersive story of Jim Jones' idealistic organization's final hours that spiraled into a mass casualty event. Watch Cult Massacre: One Day in Jonestown on Hulu!
Connecting this documentary to 9/11: One Day in America indicates both its pedigree and how this could easily have been a nominee for Outstanding Historical Documentary (same with "Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal"). Doing so would have put it in direct competition with Tsunami: Race Against Time, also by the same team, and I don't think they, Hulu, and National Geographic would have appreciated that. It's better off here, although I'd be surprised if that allows it to win this category.

It seems that no documentary category would be complete without a Netflix nominee, and Into The Fire: The Lost Daughter | Official Trailer | Netflix confirms my feeling.

A mother discovers the daughter she gave up for adoption many years ago has disappeared—and she will stop at nothing to find her. INTO THE FIRE: THE LOST DAUGHTER, directed by Ryan White and produced by Charlize Theron, comes to Netflix September 12.
"[P]roduced by Charlize Theron" — Theron is no stranger to true crime, having won an Oscar for portraying serial killer Aileen Wuornos in Monster.

The final trailer today is Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer | Official Trailer | Hulu.

To stop serial killers you need to think like one. Follow FBI specialist Dr. Ann Burgess as she explores the minds of notorious murderers in the new series Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer, premiering on July 11.

From award-winning executive producers Dakota and Elle Fanning and critically acclaimed collaborators comes “Mastermind: To Think Like A Killer,” a fascinating new perspective on the woman whose crime hunting innovations changed history. To stop serial killers, psychiatric nurse and professor Dr. Ann Burgess must first learn to think like one. With unprecedented access to the mastermind behind the development of modern serial-killer profiling, the series tells Burgess’ tenacious story and her compassion for victims which puts her at the center of America’s most infamous true-crime cases. From the widely known Ed Kemper and Ted Bundy to lesser-known cases like the Ski Mask Rapist, Burgess investigates and studies the damaged psyches of victims and their attackers, putting two halves of the same story together to catch a killer. Largely an unsung heroine until now, Dr.Burgess impacted not only the FBI, she also radically championed the plight of women in America.
As a fan of the prematurely canceled Mindhunter and run extended on streaming Criminal Minds, I'm glad to see the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Units receiving the documentary treatment they deserve. Also, Dakota Fanning is familiar with historical crime, having played one of the detectives in The Alienist, while her sister Elle, better known for playing Catherine the Great in The Great, also portrayed a defendant in a movie about true crime, The Girl from Plainville. Together, that puts them on the same level as Charlize Theron. Those credentials might have impressed the Television Academy if their documentaries had been nominated at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, but I'm not so sure they will be enough to convince the documentarians and journalists here. As I usually write when I cover awards shows, electorates matter.

Time to recycle what I last wrote in 'The Grab' leads both Outstanding Investigative Documentary and Best Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards.
Now to re-examine the nominees for Best Documentary, which I first covered in 'King Coal' vs. 'Hollywood Black' and 'Madu' for Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards.
For the first time in this series, I'm examining the nominees for Best Documentary. I've been holding off because the category has nine nominees this year. The Grab leads with four nominations, followed by American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders and Mammals with three each, Hollywood Black, The Sixth, and The Truth vs. Alex Jones, all with two, and The Commandant's Shadow, Queendom, and The Sing Sing Chronicles with just this one. The Grab and American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders are facing off for Outstanding Investigative Documentary, The Sixth leads the nominees for Outstanding Politics and Government Documentary, The Truth vs. Alex Jones is contending with Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary, and Mammals leads the rest of the field without a subject area nomination. That's four more opportunities to examine the nominees, after which I'll make my call.
Right now, I have The Grab in first, but I'm not making a final call until I write about the rest of the nominees.
I still think The Grab is first, but I'll change or solidify my choice after I write about Mammals.

Follow over the jump for the craft categories in which Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal earned nominations.

First, an award I examined in 'Apollo 13: Survival' leads nominees for Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards for Wayback Wednesday and revisited in 'Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story' leads nominees for Outstanding Nature Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards and 'King Coal' vs. 'Hollywood Black' and 'Madu' for Outstanding Arts and Culture Documentary at the News & Doc Emmy Awards.

Like Outstanding Sound – Documentary, Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story is the most nominated member of the field for Outstanding Writing – Documentary with six nominations. King Coal follows with three. The Space Race is tied with Join or Die and The Night Won't End at two apiece. I'll have at least three more opportunities to examine this field, but my preliminary pick is Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story.
King Coal might be more beautifully written than Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story, so I'm not counting it out, but I still have the latter penciled in.
I completely missed Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal with three total nominations. Oops. Good thing I re-examined the category a third time and did a little digging, as I found out it earned a nomination for Documentary Script (TV) at the WGA Awards, the only one of this field to do so. That matters, as the network and cable news anchors and reporters are members of the WGA, so this is one of the few Hollywood guild awards that is helpful for the News & Doc Awards. The electorates overlap, so I'm now placing Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal as a co-favorite with Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story Again, electorates matter.

In addition to Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story, the nominees for Outstanding Direction Documentary are Frida and Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal with three nominations, followed by Daughters and Madu with two nominations. Right now, I have Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story penciled in, but Daughters also earned six nominations Critics Choice Documentary Awards and Frida earned two, so I'll re-examine my choice when I examine them.
Madu's directors definitely deserve their nomination, but Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story's BAFTA TV Award for Director, Factual makes it the favorite.
After looking at the nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary at the DGA Awards, I now think Daughters is now a co-favorite with Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story. I suspect the documentary directors in the DGA overlap with those in the east coast television academy who vote for these awards. Once again, electorates matter. As for Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal, it reminds me of The Janes, another archival documentary. The latter won Outstanding Direction Documentary, but it also won Best Documentary, which Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal is not nominated for. I think that might matter.

That concludes today's installment. Stay tuned for another on Tuesday. I think I will write about something else tomorrow.

Previous posts about the 46th News & Doc Emmy Awards
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