As a true blue documentary fan, I have always maintained that the subject matter of a great doc is not the most important element. Nope, it’s not the story as much as it’s the storytelling.

I mention this because the new series ‘Untold,’ is, on its surface, a collection of sports docs. However, I hope that won’t send away non-sports fans, because these 5 episodes are about much more than sports, and anyone up for a good story will find themselves drawn into real, human drama.

The title “Untold” suggests that each installment is going to examine a story that’s known to the public, but will introduce way more than the public has known over time. I hate to use this now cliché slogan, but they really do “go behind the headlines” to reveal surprising, often emotional threads that were never so thoughtfully put together by sports and news media at the time.

Episode one, entitled “Malice at the Palace,” re-visits the 2004 NBA game between the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers, in which an ugly, violent brawl broke out among players and fans – in other words, for what seemed like a first, sports violence moved from the hardwood floor to the spectators in the stands.

The reaction at time the time was of utter disgust. But soon, news media were using small, edited portions of clips to justify using words like “thugs” to describe the three (African-American, btw) players most directly involved. Broad strokes that never took into account the humanity of those involved.

 The filmmakers,  Chapman Way and Maclain Way, who made the excellent ”Wild Wild Country,” let Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, and Jermaine O’Neal, tell the story from their own perspectives. Where did these guys come from? What was going on in their households and in their heads? Artest, it turns out, was seeing a therapist for anxiety and depression and no one knew. Jermaine O’Neal was drafted at the age of 17, just a kid, now he is fully in charge of his narrative as a temperate, thoughtful personality.

Now, if you do happen to be a sports fan, you’ll also find yourself leaning forward into the story – lots of good interview content from Reggie Miller helps bring in the competitive NBA perspective to the surface, as well as the coach and even a senior staffer from the Palace in Auburn Hills that fateful November night in 2004.

I’ll be posting advance interviews of the other 4 episodes soon. You’ll find links to them here.

Meantime, the trailer below will give you a glimpse of what’s to come.