Less-Than-Perfect Portrayals Taint ‘Scene of the Crime’ Debut

If there’s one thing more difficult than pulling off the perfect crime, it’s pulling off the perfect crime show. And in “Scene of the Crime,” airing tonight at 10 on the Learning Channel, both criminals and producers fall a bit short.

The program uses a documentary framework blended with extensive re-creation footage in the hopes that the hybrid will draw enough viewers to push the series beyond its three-episode commitment.

Tonight’s debut, “Stand-In for Murder,” grapples with the 1988 death of a man in a Glendale doctor’s office, apparently from natural causes. Rather mundane stuff, perhaps--until we learn that the deceased was dead drunk in more ways than one, he had a birth certificate planted in his back pocket, and a million-dollar insurance policy had recently been taken out on his life.

So much for devising the perfect crime. The suspense quickly shifts from whether a crime has been committed to who are the responsible parties, and whether they’ll be tracked down and brought to justice.

The show is on solid footing when it is in documentary mode, but the re-creations are a problem. When credibility is not being smothered by the abundance of false facial hair, it is strained by awkward staging and the actors’ barely passing resemblance to the real-life people they are portraying, who are repeatedly seen in archival film snippets.

“Scene of the Crime” may be on to something with its distinct formula for juggling documentary and drama, but execution is the name of this game.