If You Thought The Fourth Episode of ‘Baby Reindeer’ Left You Raw, You Should Hear What His Editor Has to Say About It

Baby Reindeer editor Peter Oliver believes the 11-time Emmy-nominated limited series’ pacing is one of the reasons the dark comedy thriller works so well. However, he won’t take full credit for that. The show’s harrowing fourth episode is the one that has secured Oliver his first-time nod, an honor he shares with Benjamin Gerstein.

“I originally tried to make it more frenetic so it felt more jump-cut-y, but the director Weronika Tofilska slowed that right down,” he explains, agreeing it was the right thing to do. For mood and tone, one of the stylistic references she gave Oliver early on was Danny Boyle’s 1996 film Trainspotting.

While the Netflix seven-parter predominantly focuses on Donny Dunn (Richard Gadd) being stalked by Martha Scott (Jessica Gunning), a lawyer with a checkered past, the nominated fourth episode is primarily a flashback to Dunn’s grooming, drugging and sexual assault by a mentor.

“We did a lot of work on the drug scenes,” Oliver recalls, saying they wanted to avoid it being “over-the-top.”

“We also didn’t want it to be too slow or fast,” he adds. “The same is true for the scene where Donny tries to get out of the apartment. The abuse elements were also very tricky.”

According to Gerstein, the pair felt “an enormous responsibility” telling the deeply traumatic part of Gadd’s story, and the rhythm of the episode was vital in keeping the audience on board.

“Richard had written so many of those changes of pace into the script, the playfulness and joy of the Edinburgh sequences juxtaposed with the desperation and horror of the abuse scenes,” he reveals. “One thing we are very proud of is how this episode has opened up conversations among those who have suffered abuse. I know from conversations with friends and online that, for many, the complicated portrayal of the aftermath of abuse really resonated, giving voice and airtime to stories that people often keep hidden.”

Tofilska and Gadd, the show’s creator whose real-life experience inspired Baby Reindeer, sat in on the edit. “They wanted to make it a piece of art,” Oliver adds. “You’re never trying to hoodwink the audience through a scene or an episode; you’re letting the natural progression happen and doing justice to the performances.”

While many assume editing is predominantly about visuals, Oliver carefully layered audio to enhance and sometimes delicately foreshadow Baby Reindeer’s narrative.

“Sound tells audiences as much as the picture, and you can tell much more of the story subliminally,” he explains. “There’s a lot of atmosphere in the pub scenes. There is a moment in episode one where Martha’s at the bar and says her birthday is coming up. I did a lot by adding laughter and chatter, and I put a music track in the background on the jukebox that included the lyrics, ‘She’s in disguise.’ It was so low and subtle when you hear it.”

Editing the show took longer than many of Oliver’s previous projects, partly because the show included so much of Gadd’s life. However, he embraced the process’ quirks, making it a unique experience.

“We would sit with him during those moments and ask, ‘Is this how you imagined it?’ It’s almost a documentary. There’s a lot of voiceover, too,” the editor concludes. “We were in the edit suite, and Richard hadn’t had anywhere to do it. There wasn’t a booth, so he had to record it in the corridor. I still wonder what people must have thought of him recording the voiceover again and again as they walked by.”