It’s getting hard to predict whether anything coming out of the Ryan Murphy factory is going to be good anymore. With recent seasons of American Horror Story, we’ve seen a descent into schlock territory. But there’s hope and there’s life in this first trailer for American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson.
From a personal standpoint, this trailer brings a lot of memories of my early teens rushing back. I was 12 years old in 1995 during the murder trial of O.J. Simpson and I remember becoming completely fixated upon the courtroom drama. It wasn’t just the fact that the scene of police chasing the white Ford Bronco is so indelible. It’s that our culture seemed to stop so that everyone could watch the trial, which was broadcast live on television. I remember becoming emotionally involved in whether or not O.J. was guilty of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. And as any 12-year old might, I remember being swayed one way or the other pretty easily. The trial was about race. It was about celebrity. It was about the manipulation of the justice system. And all told, it provided not just for a summer break’s worth of entertainment, but a spark of interest in the way our justice system works. That feeling stayed with me throughout my teens, and was probable cause for my similar interest in the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton a few years later.
So at the very least, I’m excited to see how this series plays out. The cast is excellent and the source material is incredibly rich. There were characters — like Johnnie Cochran, played here by Courtney B. Vance — that you couldn’t make up if you tried. There’s no fiction that could build a better Marcia Clarke (Sarah Paulson) or Detective Mark Fuhrman.
Also, he’s not in the trailer, but Nathan Lane is playing F. Lee Bailey. I loved F. Lee Bailey.
It’s clear from this trailer that Murphy, alongside Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, have given a big cast the green light to go to town on this one. It should be an entertaining watch, to say the least.
Watch the first full trailer below:
American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson debuts on FX on February 2.
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