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Dolores Avery (right) with Kathleen Zellner in Making a Murderer: Part 2.Netflix

Lean in close and I’ll spill details of the hottest television series of the year. It has everything: an outrageous crime, a lengthy investigation, surprise witnesses, flinty evidence, heroes who become villains and vice versa! Have you already guessed the title? That’s right, it’s Evil Genius. No, wait, it’s The Keepers. Maybe Wild Wild Country. The Staircase? Wormwood? The Jinx?

When Making a Murderer debuted on Netflix at the tail end of 2015 – chronicling the trial of Wisconsin’s Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach – the true-crime-as-entertainment landscape was mostly limited to Dateline specials and the occasional films from documentary veterans like Joe Berlinger. Today, you can barely scan Netflix without tripping over another must-see multi-part sensation examining some lurid crime or supposed miscarriage of justice you never could have imagined.

So as Making a Murderer returns for its long-awaited second season, creators Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos enter an entirely new world that they themselves unwittingly inspired. It’s an era that presents its own monumental challenges, namely the fact that a good chunk of Making a Murderer’s audience have refashioned themselves as amateur detectives, devouring every new development in the case like candy laid out in the lobby of 221b Baker Street.

Can a long-form documentary such as theirs satiate viewers who are now keeping up with live developments in the Avery case? Practically, how much more of the filmmakers' lives can they dedicate to following a case that, for the moment, shows no end? And, more importantly for Netflix’s current true-crime bubble, how long will viewers do the same?

Ahead of Making a Murderer’s second season debut, The Globe and Mail’s Barry Hertz spoke with Ricciardi and Demos about the long life of a documentary, and the even longer life of a criminal case.

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From left: Allan Avery, Dolores Avery and Steven Avery.Netflix

How soon after Season 1 wrapped production did you feel a follow-up was necessary?

Ricciardi: Within six months we started filming again, June, 2016, so it was a very quick ramp-up. We knew that we wanted to cover the next chapter, and Netflix was on-board with what the story could offer.

How did you cope with the media picking up the story, and running with it?

Demos: We could barely dream that it could’ve reached this scope, and the breadth of the response. It was thrilling to us, as creators, because for so long you’re making this work by yourself. Quite a long process to filming the first part was finding a home for it. That whole time, we had viewers in mind. For instance, we were offered two-hour slots on television, but we said no. This story needs a different format, even though that format wasn’t out there at the time. We wanted to give viewers the experience we had when we witnessed it. The goal was to start a dialogue, so it was thrilling to us.

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In the second season, viewers will enter the post-conviction phase of the Avery trial, a much lesser-known part of the criminal justice system.Netflix

The reaction to the series has been seemingly immense, but have you ever gotten a sense from Netflix about just how many people have consumed it?

Ricciardi: No, that’s not information we’re privy to. But I would like to build on what Moira was saying, because when we were trying to find a home for the first part, we were uncompromising of story over format. We felt the story was paramount, and as we were self-financed for the first eight years, we were taking on this risk personally. The response was such a relief, because it was a tremendous risk to take, and we thought the most complete and compelling story needed to play out over 10 episodes. We’re incredibly grateful that people tuned in and talked about it.

In recent interviews, you’ve said that Season 2 was an opportunity to “find comfort in ambiguity.” Do you feel the new season embraces a more neutral or ambiguous perspective than the first?

Demos: What we were challenging viewers to do in Part 1 was to find comfort in ambiguity. Every answer just led to a new question. We weren’t trying to answer everything – just to show how complex it was, and how it wasn’t as simple as the prosecution made it out. It left people with a lot of questions. In Season 2, understanding that ambiguity is not the most comfortable place to be, what we’re offering is the experience now of the accused, and what it’s like. You’re entering this new post-conviction phase, a much lesser-known part of the criminal justice system.

Was there any concern that you’d be working against what audiences already know?

Demos: In all honesty, it wasn’t that big a concern, because what our story is about and what we’re concerned with is the process and journey. Yes, you might know the station the train pulls into at the end, but it doesn’t tell you at all how you got there and what the story is. We believe the series has so much more to offer than the headlines.

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Luke Haag (left) with Kathleen Zellner in Making a Murderer: Part 2.Netflix

Watching the first four episodes of the new season, it seems like Teresa Halbach has a much more robust presence than the first season. How did that come about?

Ricciardi: Because this is a visual medium, we needed to be able to point a camera to something or have access to archival materials. So making the new season, a new opportunity arose where we were able to hear from people who had firsthand experience or were directly affected by the events unfolding in the story. The Halbach family chose not to participate, and that’s something we totally understand and respect. But one of Teresa’s friends graciously agreed to sit down with us and give a thoughtful interview, and share archival material with us this time around. So it was about a new opportunity arising and us trying to make the most of it.

Are you hoping to do something outside of the true-crime landscape at some point, or even outside the documentary form?

Ricciardi: Absolutely, and we think as storytellers it’s important to just be open. I used to say that we were always on the lookout for a good story – we weren’t researching murder stories or anything like that. We happened to pick up the New York Times one day and Steven was there on the front page, back in 2005. It sort of fell into our laps. We’re still reading the paper every day, trying to remain open.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

Making a Murderer returns for its second season on Netflix starting Oct. 19.

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