There Might Be More Episodes Of “Making A Murderer” Coming

There’s a good chance you spent your Christmas break hanging out with the fam, eating way too much turkey, and binge-watching one of the grisliest and most despairing true crime docos to ever grace Netflix: Making a Murderer.

If so, nice work on spending the holidays right.

Turns out you might end up doing the same come Christmas 2016.

Spoilers ahoy from this point on.

Show creators Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi revealed at the Television Critics Association press tour that they’ve recorded new phone calls with its subject, Steven Avery, from prison, for a potential second season.

“I think today marks four weeks since the series launched and what we’ve managed to do in the past four weeks is have several phone calls with Steven Avery which we have recorded with an eye toward including them in future episodes,” Ricciardi explained.

"It’s real-life so you don’t know what’s going to happen. We are ready… if there are significant developments, we will be there,” Demos added.

Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos, however, told THR that “we’re not talking about a second season.” Still, when asked if he wanted more of Murderer, he answered, “For sure.”

For the unfamiliar, Netflix’s much-debated 10-part series Making a Murderer follows the decades-long investigation of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man who was wrongfully convicted of rape and spent 18 years behind bars; he was ultimately released when new DNA evidence cleared him of the crime.

The story doesn’t end there. As we learn at the end of the first episode, upon his release in the early 2000s, Avery became the subject of a murder investigation.

Avery was eventually convicted of murdering young journalist Teresa Halbach, after her bones were found in a burn-pit on his estate, and her car located in the Avery junkyard.

Following the wild success of the series, Avery has filed an appeal of his murder conviction. He certainly has the sympathies of many viewers, with more than 450,000 people signing a petition for his release, believing the Defence’s case that he was potentially framed by police. (Though, it was addressed to the President, forcing the White House to remind people that they can’t pardon anyone for state crimes. Nice one, petitioneers.)

Since the show’s unveiling on Netflix, much more incriminating information on Avery (excluded from the doco) has come to light, suggesting he’s not quite the sympathetic character that’s been painted by the series. Yet, there’s still an argument to be made that, guilty or not, Avery was denied a fair trial.

It seems unlikely we’ve heard the end of this story.

Whether on Netflix or elsewhere, expect to have another opportunity to feel despair over the American justice system and its social strata sometime soon.