"Primetime" review — A frenetic trip down the dark side of television history
“You see how this looks, right?” During its original run from 2004–2007 on NBC, Chris Hansen’s To Catch a Predator , originating as part of Dateline NBC , was no stranger to controversy and criticism. The show revolved around the relatively simple premise of baiting and exposing potential online child predators, who were using the earliest forms of internet instant messaging to prey on what seemed to be children on the internet. Of course, the predators featured in this show were never really chatting with minors, but members of the show’s staff, who lured these men into sting operations, where they would meet Chris Hansen, his army of TV cameras, and, eventually, the police. Whether or not any of the shenanigans performed by Hansen and team could constitute a true criminal investigation was at the heart of most of the controversy that surrounded the series. Many of the alleged criminals never faced justice because of the obvious element of entrapment that Predator was built around. ...
