I was nearly bought to tears. I remember recognising the faces of Chad and Sherri Franke, because sometimes they would appear on the front section of YouTube back many years ago when I was using a Sony Ericsson mobile phone. Since then, I have always found something very off and predatory about family vlogging trying to capture a perfect, idyllic version of their lives. After many years later, I was listening to my favourite podcast, The Triforce Podcast, where they discussed the news of what happened to this family. So before I watched this, I had an idea of what this family was and what happened to the children. Also more importantly, I knew the father of the children wasn’t punished and I was extremely curious about his role which the documentary did share. The documentary itself is very concise and extremely well-edited which I appreciated. It’s 3 episodes and structured quite well; ep 1 tells us the context of the family and early warning signs, ep 2 the downward spiral, ep 3 the rescue and aftermath. There were several moments that hit hard for me on a personal moment in this documentary too as someone who has experienced my own fair share of trauma. For instance, when Kevin said “if I dwell on it, it eats me up alive” or wishing he could change things if he could go back in time. Also, moments like when Sherri Franke discovered the past of religious therapist Jodi and her parents not listening to her would’ve consumed me if I was in her shoes as similar moments to that did consume. Alongside the good editing, I think the direction and use of score was excellent. In terms of the content, I think the documentary shows everything wrong with family vlogging which were the early signs of child abuse. Everything began from there and it got worse and worse. There are other factors of course, but that made the other factors worse or were the root of those other factors. I think it is a miracle that the older children Chad and Sherri are doing fine now but the younger children will have permanent life-long mental scars and it is so sad that they have to deal with that from such a young age. Jodi and the mother are despicable people; Jodi is simply evil for actively ruining lives because her life has been ruined and the mother is extremely self-seeking. The father because he was separated from the children and his wife during the period of child abuse, is legally fine but you can see him being compliant to his wife’s abnormally strict parenting. I do appreciate that the documentary expresses the spectrum of emotions that Kevin and Chad has towards Ruby and Jodi but I don’t know if Kevin having his younger children is for the best. I don’t think he will be abusive but I do think the cruel and unusual parenting of Ruby has or indirectly would’ve rubbed on him. Though, ultimately, I don’t know if living with a strict dad who is probably going through a whirlwind of issues is better than living in a foster home. However, I did like the honesty and authenticity as you can lose yourself trying to win over a girl and it’s hard to not love someone like your mom or wife. Also, I do believe in being more firm than flowery parenting but there is a distinction between that and abuse and in a way it shows how important it is for me to document any safeguarding concerns as a backlog of evidence to prevent stuff from going to child abuse to the point where the children could die. All in all, it is a fantastic documentary miniseries that I highly recommend. Its well made with a compelling story to follow that to me is significant and not very discussed issue.