Photo Janiece Mitchner

An illustration depicting Johnny Depp during the trial. Amber Heard is seen in the reflection of his sunglasses.

If you had any form of social media during April 2022, you were aware of the infamous Depp v. Heard defamation suit. The case quickly garnered attention due to the A-list status of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, and in a short amount of time became nothing more than a social media circus.

A Netflix documentary on this case was inevitable considering the amount of coverage done by streaming channels and social media pages. The first thing I thought when Netflix announced this series was that it’d expose information about the suit that was previously hidden or even shine light on new perspectives. But I was incredibly disappointed.

During the first episode of this three-part docuseries, I found myself wondering when the break would be. When would they reveal something that’d make it more than a dull recap of the case that everyone had already watched? But it never came. If you kept track of the case when it was actually happening, there was literally nothing about this docuseries that made this worth watching.

On top of being plotless, the docuseries was just plain lazy. It comprised of small snippets of Depp and Heard testifying between clips of content creators commenting on the case, with an occasional staged clip of someone looking at the camera somberly. I could’ve put this together myself. For lack of better words, it was choppy and corny.

I understand what was trying to be achieved, and I will admit that the concept of putting their testimonies side by side initially seemed appealing. But the social media input was overdone and just made the docuseries seem unreliable. Every content creator featured was either hard-core Depp or Heard. This colored commentary tainted the coverage of the case and removed any shred of credibility it came with.

If you’re unfamiliar with the case and are just curious how it played out, there’s no harm in watching the “Depp v. Heard” documentary. But if you’re a seasoned expert looking for a new perspective, new information or even an intelligent conversation, I’d skip this one.