The "unlikeability" factor
If you’ve spent any time in true crime circles lately, you know the consensus on Trophy Wife: Murder on Safari is essentially a collective cringe. While many docuseries try to find a sympathetic hook—an innocent victim, a grieving family, a crusading lawyer—this one leans into the mess.
The series follows the 2016 death of Bianca Rudolph, but the real focus is the orbit of people left behind. Viewers on Reddit and IMDb have been vocal about the fact that almost no one on screen comes across as particularly likable. It’s a three-part study in wealth, ego, and big-game hunting that feels more like a tabloid come to life than a prestige documentary. If you usually watch true crime to see justice served or to solve a puzzle, this might feel hollow. But if you’re here for the "eat the rich" energy of watching a privileged world implode, it hits the mark.
From long-form to limited series
There is a specific friction here between the source material and the final product. The show is based on a Rolling Stone feature from 2022, and you can feel that investigative DNA trying to break through the sensationalism. The article was a tight, focused piece of journalism. The docuseries, however, stretches that narrative across three episodes, and that’s where the 6.1 IMDb rating starts to make sense.
The production tries to overcompensate for a lack of new evidence by amping up the drama with aggressive music and flashy visuals. It’s a common trope in recent Hulu true crime releases: taking a perfectly good magazine article and inflating it until the substance feels thin. You’ll get the facts of the Pittsburgh dentist, the mistress, and the fatal shot in Africa, but you might find yourself checking your phone during the second hour.
The bingeability trap
For most parents, the "is it worth it" calculation usually comes down to time. At three episodes, it’s a relatively short commitment, but it’s a grimy one. Unlike some docs that leave you feeling smarter about the legal system or forensic science, this one mostly leaves you wanting a shower.
If you’ve already burned through the top-tier true crime classics and you’re looking for something to fill a Sunday night, Trophy Wife is fine. It’s the television equivalent of a beach read—fast, slightly trashy, and easily forgotten. Just don't expect the level of craft you'd see in a high-budget feature film. It’s a standard-issue streamer doc that relies on the shock value of its title and the absurdity of its setting to do the heavy lifting. If the premise of a "dentist on safari" sounds too ridiculous to be true, the show confirms that reality is indeed weirder than fiction, even if the execution is strictly mid-tier.
