Mushroom Murders is too soon unless it looks away from Patterson

Is there such a thing as a respectful performance of a poisoner while her appeal is still being decided? Paramount+ is about to find out, and so are we.

The facts first, briefly. Paramount+ has commissioned Mushroom Murders: There's More to Unearth, a six-part Australian limited series that casts Melanie Lynskey, who is also an executive producer, as Erin Patterson. As The Independent reports, it's due in 2027, with Daina Reid directing and Anya Beyersdorf (of Netflix's Apple Cider Vinegar) creating. Patterson was convicted in 2025 of murdering Don and Gail Patterson and Heather Wilkinson, and of attempting to murder Ian Wilkinson. She has appealed, and prosecutors have separately appealed her sentence.

"Too soon" is the wrong measuring stick

Online, the reaction split fast. Some fans called the casting perfect. Others, quoted by the Daily Mail, asked whether one victim is "still recovering" and the appeals are still running. That instinct is fair, but a calendar can't settle it. Three years since the lunch isn't obviously too short, and ten wouldn't make a cheap show dignified.

What matters is what the show is for. The case has already spawned podcasts, books and television adaptations, so the market clearly won't wait politely. Paramount Australia's Tamara Simoneau said as much to the Sydney Morning Herald: a story the whole country was obsessed with was bound to end up in writing rooms. That's an honest description of the appetite. It isn't a justification.

The 97-day structure is smart, and it's also a risk

The series skips the trial and covers the 97 days between the lunch and the arrest. We think that's the most interesting choice on the table. A courtroom drama would have to take a position on the verdict while the appeals are live. The stretch before the arrest is, we'd expect, a story of confusion, hospital beds, suspicion and a family trying to understand what happened to it. That would be a story about the people who were poisoned.

It's also a risk. Those 97 days are the period when Patterson is the most mysterious figure in the story, and a mystery is a seductive thing to put a star in front of. A lead actress with two Emmy nominations, according to ARY News, plus an executive producer credit, pulls the story toward the central performance. Lynskey said that "behind all those headlines there is still so much to unearth." Fair enough, but we'd ask who the unearthing serves. If it serves the audience's curiosity about a killer's inner life, that's a puzzle box. If it serves the families' experience, that's a drama.

What would make it defensible

Our view is simple. The show earns its place only if Don, Gail, Heather and Ian are people with histories, not plot devices who exist to eat lunch and get sick. It also earns it by refusing to invent a tidy motive. The jury reportedly wanted to know why, and the sources we have describe no clear one. A neat psychological explanation in episode six would be fiction pretending to be insight.

Casting is a smaller worry than it sounds. A warm, beloved actress playing a killer can be a genuine strength, because it undercuts the lazy idea that evil looks like evil. Commenters who thought Lynskey was "too attractive" were missing that point, and the real risk runs the other way: glamour.

Our recommendation: don't dismiss it and don't cheer yet. Wait for the first trailer, then check two things. Does it spend its time with the victims' families? Does it treat the appeal as unfinished business, rather than a footnote? If yes, this could be a thoughtful piece of work. If the poster is just a haunted close-up of its star, "too soon" will be the polite verdict.