FX never fails to disappoint with its amazingly addicting shows, and this stands true with its newest miniseries “American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson.”
The show is a spin-off of FX’s “American Horror Story,” and follows a similar format in that every season is a different story, this season being the famous OJ Simpson Case. Starting the series with a story line like this was a major success because this case was one of the most publicly known American trials ever.
“I remember my mom seeing the first trailer [of “The People vs. OJ Simpson”] and becoming angry, yet excited at the same time. She said it wouldn’t be fun to relive the trial, but that it would be worth it to see the details about it she hadn’t seen before,” says senior Matthew Bash.
The case is one that no one who lived through it can forget. Orenthal James Simpson was America’s sweetheart; he had everyone in the palm of his hand. Who could blame them? Simpson was the running back of the Buffalo Bills and eventually the San Francisco 49ers. He set the record as the first player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a 14-game season, acted in a couple films, and, to the people, was just an all-around good guy….that is until the morning of June 13, 1994 when the bodies of Ronald Goldman and Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson were discovered in Brentwood, California.
From the beginning, all evidence pointed towards Simpson, but the mishandling of the evidence by the Los Angeles Police Department before and during the case was the defense’s only weapon and added to Simpson’s overall exoneration of all charges.
“When we learned about the OJ case last year in History, it was nothing like what [“The People vs. OJ Simpson”] is establishing with each episode. There are so many more aspects of it that no one even knew about and it’s so much more interesting to learn about now,” says senior Connor Santiago.
The creator of the show, the great Ryan Murphy (creator of “Glee” and “American Horror Story”), put together a cast that brings this case to life in a brand new way. Actors such as Sarah Paulson, Cuba Gooding Jr., John Travolta, David Schwimmer, Bruce Greenwood, and many more make even the new generation feel as though they were a part of this controversial trial.
“The People vs. OJ Simpson” also houses some of the best makeup of any television show on air. The incredible likeness of the actors to the characters they are portraying just adds to the realness of it all. Travolta, who plays defense lawyer Robert Shapiro, and Paulson, who plays lead prosecutor Marcia Clark, have a dream team of makeup artists especially, looking almost identical to their characters. Of course, their incredible acting helps, too.
While the series focuses on Simpson, it is not about him at all; it is about the lawyers, the legal proceedings, the mistakes of the L.A.P.D., race, and the juries and judges. The best part about it, and what I think keeps the nostalgia from getting too bad, is that it is all from a new perspective than what was shown on the news so many years ago.
“The ambition of the show is not to replay the events, but to show what was going on off-screen,” says executive producer Brad Simpson.
FX’s “American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson” airs every Tuesday at 10 pm. Tune in and take yourself back to the most talked about case of the 90’s.
What is your opinion on the OJ Simpson case?