Hollywood is dramatizing Erin Patterson's mushroom murders before her appeal is decided

The timing is the story. On October 28, Paramount+ announced that Melanie Lynskey will star in and executive produce Mushroom Murders, a six-episode limited series about Erin Patterson, the Australian woman convicted of killing three of her husband's relatives with a beef Wellington laced with death cap mushrooms. On October 30, at 10am Melbourne time, three judges of Victoria's Court of Appeal will hand down their decision on Patterson's appeal against those convictions — livestreamed by the court, two days after the casting press release.

The appeal isn't a formality. Patterson, who has always maintained her innocence, argued in August on three grounds — irregularities in jury sequestration, errors by the trial judge, and an "unfair" cross-examination by prosecutors — and if the judges agree, the outcomes range up to a retrial or an outright acquittal. Prosecutors have simultaneously appealed her sentence as too lenient, since her life term carries a non-parole period that could see her released in 2056.

Paramount+ announced its Erin Patterson series on Tuesday. Victoria's Court of Appeal rules on her convictions on Friday.

What the series is, and what it's walking into

On paper, the package is strong. Daina Reid (The Handmaid's Tale) directs all six episodes and created the series with Anya Beyersdorf and Deb Balderstone; Soapbox Pictures produces; and the show covers the 97 days between the fatal lunch in July 2023 and Patterson's arrest. Lynskey, fresh off two Emmy nominations for Yellowjackets, is the kind of casting true-crime viewers dream up on message boards — and within hours they were: "Melanie Lynskey is seriously good at playing unsettling characters. This casting could be incredible."

Paramount's announcement, notably, stays in celebration mode:

"We are also thrilled to welcome Melanie Lynskey, whose remarkable talent will be integral to the series."

— Beverley McGarvey, president of Network 10 and head of streaming, Paramount Australia

What the announcement doesn't mention is Friday. Viewers caught that almost immediately — "The appeal verdict is coming down next week afaik, to see if a retrial will occur in the future," one wrote — and "next week" was, if anything, underselling the proximity.

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The risk of filming a story before it ends

A drama about a convicted murderer is standard television. A drama about a woman whose convictions might be vacated this week is a different product, and every creative choice in it — whose version of the lunch the camera shows, how Lynskey plays the orange plate and the grey plates — becomes a public statement about contested facts. If the Court of Appeal orders a retrial, Australia would be seating a jury in a country where a star-led dramatization of the prosecution's timeline is in production, a problem Victorian courts have historically handled with suppression orders and delayed releases.

The series could, of course, be two days from having its premise legally confirmed, and the producers are far from alone in betting that way — Stan already aired a three-part documentary on the case, and the ABC has its own drama, Toxic, in development. But those projects launched into a settled verdict, and this one was announced into a 48-hour window where the verdict is, formally, in play. For true-crime viewers, that's the question to carry into the premiere: whether Mushroom Murders turns out to be a drama about a closed case — or one network's early guess about an open one.

Previously we wrote: Warner wrote off Coyote vs. Acme for taxes. Its Oscar nomination will be Hollywood's most embarrassing write-off