Waco was supposed to be a “no bad guys” take on the Waco siege, but only one side is portrayed in a positive light

The Hollywood Reporter

“This is not the ‘no bad guys’ version of the story at all,” Daniel Fienberg says of the Paramount Network miniseries on the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas. “In one story beat after another, FBI and ATF officials prioritize violence over negotiation, concentrate on public relations over empathy and actively ignore the few contentious agents who plead moderation. And I'm not saying that's incorrect, but let me offer the counter-proposal that maybe there actually were people who made mistakes on both sides?” He adds that “at every point” the show’s sympathies lie with those in the Branch Davidian compound, resulting in an insulation of cult leader David Koresh’s misdeeds, including his marrying and impregnating underage girls.

ALSO:

• Waco seems eager to vindicate Koresh, and that taints an otherwise well-told story
• Waco‘s strength comes from the fact that it doesn’t deal in moral absolutes
• Waco is problematic for painting Koresh as a sympathetic figure
• Waco falls short in telling how all these people ended up following Koresh
• It doesn’t do enough to flesh out the key motivations that turned the story into an epic tragedy
• Waco producers say that it was important to portray Koresh as his followers saw him
• Taylor Kitsch: “I haven’t played someone remotely close to who this guy is before, or someone so unrelatable for me”