Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel: Season 1

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Mixed or average reviews based on 9 Critic Reviews

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Generally unfavorable reviews based on 10 Ratings

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3.6

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3.6	User Score Generally unfavorable reviews based on 10 Ratings

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Crime Scene: The Vanishing At The Cecil Hotel

Now Playing: Crime Scene: The Vanishing At The Cecil Hotel

Season Details & Credits

NETFLIX | Season Premiere Date: February 10, 2021

Summary: The four-part documentary series from director Joe Berlinger looks into the 1993 disappearance of Elisa Lam from Los Angeles' Cecil Hotel.

Genre(s): Drama, Movie/Mini-Series, Documentary

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Season 1 Episodes

tbd
S1:E4. Episode 04
Air Date: February 10, 2021
tbd
S1:E3. Episode 03
Air Date: February 10, 2021
tbd
S1:E2. Episode 02
Air Date: February 10, 2021

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

Lauren J. Coates

Feb 8, 2021

Sophisticated, gripping, and full of perspectives usually absent in the genre, Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel is an expertly-paced mystery and a thought-provoking discussion on classism, mental health, and the ethics of true crime. It’s also remarkably cinematic in terms of aesthetics, thriving with atmospheric visuals and clever pacing that create a murky, engrossing atmosphere. You’ll finish it in one sitting. Read full review

Joel Keller

Feb 10, 2021

The scripted visuals here fill things in quite well because Berlinger keeps them weird and odd, like the hotel itself. ... Considering the complexities of the Lam case, plus the Cecil Hotel’s history, no one can claim that Crime Scene: The Vanishing At The Cecil Hotel is padded out. We’re actually wondering how they’ll cover everything in 4 episodes. Read full review

RogerEbert.com Brian Tallerico

Feb 10, 2021

There are times when “Crime Scene” leans too much into that mindset of salacious true crime obsessives, but I believe it’s for the greater good in the end, illustrating how many of the conspiracy theories around Elisa Lam were misguided at best. Read full review

Dan Fienberg

Feb 9, 2021

What Crime Scene needs is much more of Doug Mungin, a Skid Row urban scholar, and much less of almost everything else. ... There's just a way to do a commentary on the corrosive effect of true-crime voyeurism without being so pervasively voyeuristic, and I wish Crime Scene had walked that tightrope more deftly. Read full review

Caroline Framke

Feb 9, 2021

It’s a shame that it takes so long for the show to understand what makes this particular crime scene compelling — or, even worse, that it relishes validating the most salacious details and theories before deigning to do its case, and the woman at its center, true justice. If “Crime Scene” weren’t too busy spinning a wildly compelling yarn, it might have been able to do something far more interesting in taking apart the true crime obsession that makes this hotel and case such phenomena at all. Read full review

The Telegraph Anita Singh

Feb 10, 2021

The show was padded out with a lengthy history of the Cecil - an infamous Skid Row landmark, renamed and repackaged to hide its squalid side from naive tourists. But much of it was irrelevant to the story of poor Elisa Lam. Read full review

The Guardian Ellen E Jones

Feb 10, 2021

The basic facts of Lam’s death are so upsetting, that Crime Scene’s various attempts to lighten the mood with historical detours and commentary from cutesy eccentrics such as the general manager with the Veronica Lake wave, feel, at best, in very poor taste. It is not spooky, it is just sad; desperately sad that a family have lost their beloved daughter and sad, too, that in Los Angeles, as in many other places around the world, the result of human beings in a mental health crisis is avoidable tragedy. Read full review

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User Reviews

SScholder1

Feb 13, 2021

It's funny that the other reviews don't seem to understand what this was. This wasn't a show about this crime. It is a show about the nature of certain folks who have their own version of mental illness and obsess about a person and or a crime case that they have absolutely no connection to.It's funny that the other reviews don't seem to understand what this was. This wasn't a show about this crime. It is a show about the nature of certain folks who have their own version of mental illness and obsess about a person and or a crime case that they have absolutely no connection to. No expertise. No more knowledge about a crime. Scene than any random common person who has a slight or more. Interest in true crime.

The sad issue here is that mental Illness is extremely difficult and imp. And a large group of individuals who are. Concerned with themselves and what helping solve a mystery does. Fo

For their own lives and anyone who has never seen what bipolar disorder look like when medication stops has no concept of how serious it affects a person.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

Drose_

Feb 12, 2021

Whilst entertaining enough, this documentary (?) series is about 3 episodes too long, and uses the age old trick of fleshing out sequences with people stating the obvious. The pacing is plodding, and leads to very little payoff seeing as the case is yet unsolved. In addition, the so calledWhilst entertaining enough, this documentary (?) series is about 3 episodes too long, and uses the age old trick of fleshing out sequences with people stating the obvious. The pacing is plodding, and leads to very little payoff seeing as the case is yet unsolved. In addition, the so called 'internet sleuths' detract from any sensible plot, and lead us into YouTube conspiracy territory. Not what I was expecting, and I can't say I was pleasantly surprised.… Expand