Netflix Documentary Requires Second Documentary to Explain Why Nothing Happened
LOS ANGELES — A Netflix documentary about an unsolved disappearance will be followed by a three-part companion series examining why its six-part investigation failed to establish that anyone was missing.
The Empty Chair follows the case of a suburban dining chair that appeared unoccupied in a photograph taken during a family gathering in 1997. During six episodes, investigators interview relatives, enlarge the photograph, dust for fingerprints, and visit the house in winter.
“We knew someone wasn’t sitting there,” said director Martin Voss, 46, a documentary filmmaker who describes every room he enters as a location. “The question was who.”
Early episodes of The Empty Chair focus on a folded napkin beside the plate. A retired detective calls its placement “consistent with somebody having been there, or being expected.” Episode four reveals that the photograph was taken before dinner.
The companion series, After the Empty Chair, will examine how that information remained unavailable to viewers for nearly four hours despite being written on the photograph’s envelope.
Producer Elaine Mercer, 52, a former television news editor who still allows seven seconds of silence after asking someone to pass the salt, said the new series would address concerns that the original documentary withheld evidence.
“We have nothing to hide,” Mercer said. “Although we do have to hold a few things for the finale.”
Are firstThe Empty Chair family declined further participation, explaining that the extra place had been set for a neighbor who decided to eat at home. That account will be examined in the second installment, The Neighbor’s Version.
Voss cautioned against accepting such a simple explanation. The neighbor offered to provide a photograph of himself eating dinner at home. Mercer declined to examine it until Netflix committed to a second season.
“We owe the family closure,” she said. “We’d prefer to know how many episodes.”
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