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First Month Take-Aways.

It’s been a busy and also heavy first month on the Murder Made Fiction podcast for Jenn and I. We’ve spent September looking at a variety of texts that explore Jeffrey Dahmer as a teenager, as a man, as a sexual predator, as a bogeyman, and as an example of social injustice, particularly in the treatment of Black and queer marginalized communities.

We started the month with a mini-primer on Dahmer‘s backstory and his killing spree, which resulted in the deaths of 17 men. It’s a gruesome story, filled with sexual assaults, murder, and cannibalism.

Then we dove into multiple films and television shows, including:

My Friend Dahmer (2017): Marc Meyers‘ adaptation of Derf Backderf’s comic memoir, which is a mostly bloodless affair and features a great starring turn by former Disney star (now rocker) Ross Lynch (listen here). Dahmer (2002): Jeremy Renner...

When we say that Netflix has something for everyone, we do mean that because the horror sub-genre of serial killers has always been popular among audiences but making a good show on this topic is pretty hard. That’s why we had to scour through Netflix’s huge library of content to find the best of the best. So, here are the 10 best serial killer shows on Netflix you should watch right now.

Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Credit – Netflix

Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is the first season of the anthology series about real-life serial killers titled Monster. Created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, the Netflix series revolves around one of the most dangerous serial killers ever. While Dahmer is a big part of the story, we see the series mostly through the eyes of the victims. Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story stars Evan Peters,...

Evan Peters and his “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” co-star Niecy Nash-Betts are currently the odds-on favorites to take home the Emmys for Best Limited Series/TV Movie Actor and Best Limited Series/TV Movie Supporting Actress, respectively. If both prevail in January, “Dahmer” will join a very small group of programs that have bagged both prizes.

Since the limited series/TV movie supporting acting categories were created in 1975, only four programs have won both awards. The first to do it was the telefilm “The Promise” (1986), which racked up victories for James Woods in lead and Piper Laurie in supporting. It was followed by another TV movie, 1996’s “Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny” (Alan Rickman and Greta Scacchi), and the two-part miniseries “George Wallace” in 1998 (Gary Sinise and Mare Winningham).

Rounding out the quartet is another miniseries, “Angels in America,” which triumphed for Al Pacino in lead and...

This year, for the first time ever, multiple limited series have each received two simultaneous directing Emmy nominations. These history-making programs – “Beef” and “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” – are both Netflix productions that have amassed 13 TV academy notices apiece, with this being one of eight categories in which they are directly facing off. While it is true that only one of this category’s previous multi-nominated series actually won, the fact that these two new shows take up a majority of their lineup’s slots might very well yield an unusual result.

Either Netflix series would bring the streaming platform its third limited program directing win, following the success of “Unorthodox” in 2020 and “The Queen’s Gambit” in 2021. Also in the running are the category’s first Hulu original movie, “Prey,” and the FX series “Fleishman is in Trouble,” which also hails from a network that has already prevailed here twice.

A version of this story about “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story“ first appeared in the Down to the Wire: Drama and Limited Series issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.

The Emmys won’t air for five months, but already Paris Barclay has made an impact. With his Outstanding Directing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie nomination for Netflix’s “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” Barclay became the first Black director to be nominated in all three narrative directing categories: limited series for “Dahmer”; drama series for “The West Wing” in 2002 and “NYPD Blue” in both 1998 and 1999; and comedy series for “Glee” in 2010, 2013 and 2014.

“I’m very grateful, because whenever a body of your peers actually decides the work is significant enough to be nominated for an Emmy, it’s a huge deal,” said Barclay, who served as the first Black and first openly gay...

When it came to Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment in Netflix’s Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, director Carl Franklin pictured a gritty fish tank filled with yellow-green algae and lifeless fish. He wanted to reach audiences on a visceral level, placing viewers in the notorious serial killer’s putrid living room from the victim’s perspective.

“I wanted to create more of a sensory world as opposed to just a set — something that would evoke a certain aroma or a stench, let’s say, rather than aroma,” Franklin tells Rolling Stone.

When Ryan Murphy approached Paris Barclay about directing “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” the Emmy-winning director shot down his offer.

“I said no,” says Barclay. He changed his mind, however, when he learned more about Episode 6, titled “Silenced.” Barclay, who previously won two Emmys for directing “NYPD Blue” and garnered nominations for “Glee” and “The West Wing,” ended up receiving his latest Emmy mention for his work on the episode.

On Variety Awards Circuit Roundtable, Paris Barclay, the Emmy-nominated director and executive producer of “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” sits down with us to talk about the Emmys, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, the DGA, “Dahmer,” his career (including those LL Cool J videos) and more. Listen below!

So what turned Barclay around? “[Murphy] started telling me the story of Tony Hughes,” he reveals. “I’d never heard of this young man, and I thought,...

Although he’s been a frequent collaborator of Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, director Paris Barclay says his gut instinct, when asked to helm episodes of Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, was to give it a pass. “I was alive when this was all happening in real time. I was a gay, Black man of that age. I wasn’t in Milwaukee, but nevertheless, it was scarring. He was one of those serial killers that really affected me,” Barclay tells THR. “I didn’t want to do anything that would glorify or add more ignominy to Jeffrey Dahmer. I didn’t think there was anything there for me.”

As Murphy explained to Barclay that their intent was to shift the focus away from the killer himself and onto the lives of the victims, the director reconsidered his position. “Ryan told me the story of Tony Hughes, who was this gay,...

Paris Barclay made some television history this morning.

Scoring a nomination Wednesday for the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, the seasoned director now occupies a rarified perch.

Two-time Emmy winner Barclay is the first Black director to sweep the narrative table and be nominated in the Drama, Comedy and now Limited or Anthology Series or TV Movie categories.

“I’m mostly just incredibly grateful,” said Barclay to Deadline of today’s nomination for the show’s “Silenced” episode.

Grateful to the terrific writers I’ve been fortunate to work with on Emmy episodes – David Milch, Aaron Sorkin, Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, and now I can add David McMillan and Janet Mock to the list.

But I’m also grateful I’ve been able to help tell stories that really matter, that really make a difference. This episode...

Rodney Burford had a dream of becoming a professional football player when he auditioned for Ryan Murphy’s Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Aside from his stint on the reality TV series Deaf U in 2020 and some accidental stage work in high school, Burford, who is Profoundly Deaf and has cochlear implants to help him understand the spoken word, had no acting experience.

In the show, Burford plays Tony Hughes, a 31-year-old Black deaf man who was murdered by serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (portrayed by Evan Peters) in 1991. The episodes delving into Tony’s story have been deemed some of the show’s best, and Burford’s performance has been hailed as a standout.

“It took me a while to realize that this is a real person that I’m portraying,” Burford tells THR, with the assistance of Asl interpreter Gabriel Gomez. “I [wanted] to show so much homage to the person himself.

This year’s first-round Primetime Emmy nominations ballot includes a total of 51 Best Limited Series hopefuls. This is down from 2022’s unusually high total of 61, yet still much higher than 2021’s 37, 2020’s 41, and 2019’s 35.

All 20,000 plus voting members of the TV academy have until June 26 to cast their 2023 Emmy Awards nominations ballots for programs. Unlike the Oscars, voters for the Emmys do not rank their choices and nominees are determined by a simple tally. After six years of not having to limit their choices in any categories, members’ selections can now not be greater than the number of eventual nominations for a given award, which, in this case, will be five.

Unlike comedy and drama series, which simply appear on the ballot by name, the limited series submissions include plot descriptions and cast lists. Which of the shows listed below do you think will land in the final lineup on...

Welcome to Emmy Experts Typing, a weekly column in which Gold Derby editors and Experts Joyce Eng and Christopher Rosen discuss the Emmy race — via Slack, of course. This week, we revisit limited, where the supporting categories will have seven slots again.

Christopher Rosen: Hello, Joyce! We’ve reached the final push before next month’s nominations: Emmy voting is happening right now and the 2023 ballots were a boon to actors competing for attention in the limited series supporting actor and actress races. This year, like last year, there will be seven slots in those categories — meaning it just got a whole lot more likely that our favorite stars from “Beef,” “Black Bird,” “Love & Death,” and “Monster” will score deserved nominations. I went ahead and added Michael Learned to my supporting actress picks, and I know you’ve had the “Monster” star in there for weeks. The extra slot...

While it is easy to understand why audiences seek the thrills and chills of watching murderous characters on TV, it can be a bit harder to understand why creatives would put themselves through hell and back to deliver well-executed depravity that, at its best, morphs into something more poignant.

For Dominique Fishback, star of Prime Video’s “Swarm,” a pitch-black comedy about an obsessed music fan that leans into the “Killer” part of being a Killer Bee, the role of Dre was an opportunity to shirk expectations. “I was very used to playing characters who were considered lovable or likable or easier to put your arm around,” said the actress who, outside of her BAFTA Award-nominated supporting role in “Judas and the Black Messiah,” had been mostly cast as plucky teens. “I didn’t wanna get imprisoned by my own artistry or my own fears that I would disappoint anybody...

For the sound team behind Netflix’s “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” — including production sound mixer Amanda Beggs and re-recording mixer Laura Wiest — it was important to do a deep dive into the Jeffrey Dahmer case after signing onto the true crime drama, so that they had a clear sense of how much of the show was fact, as opposed to fiction.

“After getting the scripts and starting to read them, I, of course, was curious as far as how much was true, how much was fiction, and so just sort of did my own diving into the research, just out of sheer curiosity, just to know sort of how truthful the show was trying to be,” Beggs tells Gold Derby during a recent webchat (watch the exclusive video interview above). “Because I think that also informs the performances and everything as well — and that’s obviously my goal: to capture performance.

Evan Peters, Niecy Nash-Betts and Richard Jenkins are all likely to land Emmy nominations for their performances on Netflix’s “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.” But if members of the TV academy go all in on the first iteration of the “Monster” anthology series from co-creators Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, you shouldn’t be surprised if Rodney Burford Jr., the lead of the show’s most acclaimed episode, also winds up with a bid.

As Tony Hughes, one of the 17 men murdered by infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, Burford appears in three of the show’s 10 installments, including the standout sixth outing, “Silenced.” Directed by two-time Emmy winner Paris Barclay, and written by David McMillan and Janet Mock, this episode centers on Hughes, a deaf and gay Black man with big ambitions whose life comes to a tragic halt after he encounters and is killed by Dahmer...

Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story premiered on Netflix at the end of September to a big reception, controversy, and attention from the True Crime world. The series has been making waves with its disturbing portrayal of one of America’s most infamous serial killers. While many have been focusing on Evan Peters’ chilling performance as Dahmer, there’s one classic TV star in the series that might have gone unnoticed.

Netflix’s ‘Dahmer’ drama explores the life of notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer

For years, he took the lives of innocent victims, undetected by police. But their stories won't be erased.

Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story arrives tomorrow at 8Am, only on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/OZjI1Zs5TS

— Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) September 20, 2022

Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is based on the life of Jeffrey Dahmer. He was a serial killer who committed heinous...

Ryan Murphy dove deep into the psyche of a serial killer with his latest project, Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. The 10-episode series is the first installment of a pending anthology series where Murphy intends to explore different killers each season.

The first season, which focuses solely on Jeffrey Dahmer, premiered in September and stars Evan Peters as the infamous serial killer. It has largely been considered a smash, quickly becoming one of Netflix’s most-viewed series of all time. Dahmer racked up more than 1 billion hours viewed within 60 days on the platform, and the anthology has been renewed for two additional seasons.

The sixth episode of Dahmer, titled “Silenced,” is the latest installment of It Starts on the Page, Deadline’s annual series that highlights the scripts that serve as the creative backbones of the buzzy shows that will define the TV awards season. The scripts in our...

Paris Barclay admits he didn’t initially want to direct episodes of Ryan Murphy’s “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”

“About six months before production started, Ryan called me and said, ‘We’re doing a series and we want you to be a part of it,” Barclay tells me. “I always listen to what Ryan Murphy has to offer because it’s always interesting. Ryan said, ‘It’s a miniseries about Jeffrey Dahmer,’ and I said, ‘Oh, that’s not interesting to me.’ But then he explained he wanted to tell it from the point of view of the victims.”

Barclay directed two of the Netflix series’ 10 episodes, including one focused on Tony Hughes, a Deaf and non-vocal Black man (played by newcomer Rodney Burford) who was murdered by Dahmer (played by Evan Peters) in 1991. Shortly after the series premiered, Hughes’ mother and family members of other victims...

Click here to read the full article.

Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story creator Ryan Murphy said he and his team reached out to 20 victims’ families and friends during the three and a half years it took to research and prepare for the Netflix series about the serial killer.

“It’s something that we researched for a very long time,” Murphy said at an event for the show at the DGA Theatre in Los Angeles on Thursday. “And we — over the course of the three, three and a half years when we were really writing it, working on it — we reached out to 20, around 20, of the victims’ families and friends trying to get input, trying to talk to people. And not a single person responded to us in that process. So we relied very, very heavily on our incredible group of researchers who… I don’t even know how they...

There’s probably no such thing as compassionate television about a serial killer. It’s impossible to honour victims without re-traumatising their families. And maybe you can’t explore a murderer’s damaged psyche – the rough personal history that preceded their terrible crimes – without evoking pity.

Right now, the most watched show on Netflix is Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. Viewers have spent as many hours in front of the macabre Ryan Murphy miniseries as they have Netflix’s next seven most popular programmes combined. Across the world, true crime has never been this popular – or chilling. The 10-parter opens with Jeffrey Dahmer, played with menacing stoicism by Murphy’s frequent collaborator Evan Peters, cleaning the blood from what I’m pretty sure is an electric carving knife. It’s hard for me to say because I was already watching through my fingers.

An hour later, the first...

The Performers | D’Pharaoh Woon-a-Tai, Devery Jacobs, Lane Factor and Paulina Alexis

The Show | Reservation Dogs

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The Episode | “I Still Believe” (Sept. 28, 2022)

The Performance | In the Season 2 finale of Sterlin Harjo’s gem, the Rez Dogs learned how much stronger they are together than apart.

While the crew’s late friend Daniel had always been part of the Rez Dogs’ DNA,...

Rodney Burford as Tony Hughes (far right)

Jeffrey Dahmer's shocking crimes are at the center of Netflix's new limited series "Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story." Though mountains of documentaries, podcasts, and written media have extensively covered the murders committed by the serial killer, the latest Evan Peters-led Ryan Murphy project puts forth a dramatized account of the crimes, presented in part through the victims' points of view. Episode six of the 10-part scripted series, titled "Silence," delves into Tony Hughes's (played by Rodney Burford) death at the hands of the Milwaukee Monster, who killed, sexually assaulted his victims' corpses, preserved them, and sometimes consumed their dismembered organs. Given that aspects of the show are fictionalized, viewers may be curious about how much of what they see in the series is accurate to real-life events. Read ahead to learn more about who Hughes, Dahmer's 12th of 17 known victims,...

We’ve got questions, and you’ve (maybe) got answers! With another week of TV gone by, we’re lobbing queries left and right about lotsa shows including House of the Dragon, The Rookie: Feds, La Brea and Big Sky!

1 | Was it odd that Dahmer in its otherwise strong sixth episode seemed to go out of its way to avoid showing Jeffrey (played by Evan Peters) and Tony (Rodney Burford) kiss on the lips?

More from TVLineHouse of the Dragon Recap: Eye DoInside La Brea's Prosthetic Leg Drama: 'Izzy Is Having a Very Difficult Time'TVLine Items: Rachel Nichols Moves to Showtime,...

The promotional train for Dahmer may have started late, but the lack of publicity for the series has seemingly resulted in more interest.

Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story beat Netflix records in its first week on the streaming service.

After just five days available, it secured 196.2 million hours of viewership, allowing it to hit the #1 spot in several countries.

The numbers make Dahmer the highest first week of viewership for a series debut on Netflix.

Granted, the numbers were probably helped by the fact that the series dropped on a Wednesday instead of a Friday.

We'll have more concrete numbers when the show has been available for longer.

The series narrowly beat Inventing Anna, which netted 195.97 million hours viewed.

Squid Game, which became the streamer's most-watched show ever, kicked off with just over 63 million hours viewed.

The series is headlined by Evan Peters (American Horror Story), in a...

Netflix’s “Dahmer,” created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, wants to offer a more progressive view of Milwaukee serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed 17 men and boys over the course of a decade and a half.

“Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” which is indeed the title, aims for that progressive viewpoint in two ways but also, sneakily, a third one.

The series considers how the internal failures of law enforcement ultimately enabled Dahmer’s killing spree; a bulk of the 10 hour-long episodes are also devoted to giving voice and face to the victims often overlooked by similar fictionalized serial killer shows and movies; yet it also, in showing Dahmer’s occasional flashes of guilt or self-doubt or feelings of futility about the murders and himself, succeeds whether on purpose or not in humanizing him to a degree.

That’s already proven to be a huge problem for...

It takes six episodes for “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” to meaningfully expand beyond the scope of either the serial killer or Evan Peters’ portrayal of him. In that episode, “Silenced,” directed by Paris Barclay and written by Janet Mock and David McMillan, the story of Dahmer victim Tony Anthony Hughes comes to the forefront. Tony (played with warm charm by “Deaf U” alum Rodney Burford) was a gregarious aspiring model with a big heart. He was Deaf, Black, gay, a great dancer. His friends and mother (a moving Karen Malina White) loved him very much. With every moment Burford gets to give Tony new life, the inevitable end of “Silenced” becomes all the more harrowing, and the cops’ inaction to find the truth all the more infuriating. But as the show’s nonsensical maze of a title suggests, this episode is an exception rather than the rule.

Netflix has unveiled the first look and premiere date for its highly anticipated limited series Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.

The series is headlined by Evan Peters (American Horror Story), in a role that reunites the star with Ryan Murphy.

Netflix also revealed that the series will launch in less than a week.

The entire series premieres Wednesday, September 21.

"Between 1978 and 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer gruesomely took the lives of seventeen innocent victims. Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is a series that exposes these unconscionable crimes, centered around the underserved victims and their communities impacted by the systemic racism and institutional failures of the police that allowed one of America’s most notorious serial killers to continue his murderous spree in plain sight for over a decade," the logline reads.

In addition to Peters, the cast includes Richard Jenkins (Lionel Dahmer), Molly Ringwald (Shari Dahmer), Michael Learned (Catherine Dahmer...