The Dateline Spouse… Is It You?

In every marriage, there is the Dateline spouse, and there is the victim.

Yes, I said it. For over 30 years the NBC show Dateline has been teaching people how to get away with murder. If I ever turn up dead, I want Dateline and the local police to know that even if there’s no evidence pointing to my wife, she definitely did it.

My wife is retired and is home full time now and she watches Dateline 12 hours a day. Every. Damn. Day. She actually has a Dateline t-shirt. When I’m not working I watch it with her. The show, not the t-shirt.

Every episode shows in finite detail how the murderers killed the victims and how they covered their tracks, sometimes for decades, before a rumpled, old detective goes digging into a cold case that “just didn’t sit well” with them. I like that guy in every episode. In fact, when I retire from my current job, I’m going to be a rumpled, old detective. I’ve got the rumpled part down pat. I hate ironing.

Shouldn’t it be illegal how they give way too much information about murder? Now there’s a whole generation that has had the last 30 years to study murder thanks to Dateline.

If you have ADHD though, Dateline is not for you. Sometimes the episodes are two hours long.  If you’re watching Dateline, you know the episode is way too long, but you get sucked in because you want to know who the killer is.

One thing I hate is that in most episodes at about the hour and 45 minute mark they suddenly reveal important details that occurred chronologically way before where you are in the investigation. After dragging the viewers through interviews with everyone the victim ever knew, they suddenly turn around and say “oh we forgot to tell you that five minutes after the murder the cops found the killers signature in blood and video of them buying the machete. How will the defense attorneys spin this evidence?”  The episodes of the show are longer than the actual murder investigations!

So police investigators and Dateline producers, if I’m found dead and you are reading this, my wife did it, I want the full two hour episode and the clever title will be “Murder He Wrote!” I’ll be the first person to predict his own Dateline episode. See? I told you I was psychic.

In response to one of my readers today, you can see Dateline in Canada, Australia, Europe, the United States, the Middle East, and the Philippines.

Have a great weekend everybody, but don’t kill anyone because Dateline will find you twenty years later. ~Phil