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BBC Three reimagines 'Life and Death Row' as digital series for season four

By Matthias Puschmann, Managing Director

May 17, 2016 | 3 min read

Matthias Puschmann is the managing director of Vast Media, a media research and consulting company based in Berlin that provides international television industry leaders with qualitative competitive market analysis of digital entertainment and content marketing.

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The first three seasons of BAFTA-winning series "Life and Death Row" were traditional hour-long documentaries telling the story of capital punishment through the eyes of young people whose lives have been shaped by it. The fourth season changes this concept after BBC Three became an online-only channel in February 2016. 'Life and Death Row: Love Triangle' is a serialized documentary made exclusively for digital audiences and told over the course of one week through eight 10-minute episodes.

Viewers are encouraged to delve into the case and get involved to uncover the mystery by exploring a range of supporting evidence. Starting on April 25th two episodes were made available daily at 11am and 4pm.

The series tells the real story of Heather, a young mother that was murdered, and the two suspects, her husband Joshua and his pregnant lover Emilia. The story is told through interviews with the protagonists and witnesses, recordings of interrogations and phone calls.

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For every episode, there is a range of extra evidence that allows viewers to delve into the case and explore the details. The supportive evidence consist of photo galleries, official documents, audio recordings, letters, notes and additional video interviews that all enable viewers to puzzle about the circumstances of Heather's death and which statements were true and false.

BBC Three also aims to spark conversation on social media, with the channel's social accounts and the viewers discussing their thoughts and speculations using the hashtag #LifeAndDeathRow.

The channel not only shares content relating to the case on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but also directly interacts with the fans to collaboratively uncover the mystery.

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