Ryan Murphy’s new show is the buzziest project in town. Does the script live up to that buzz??
Genre: TV Pilot – Drama – True Story
Premise: American Crime Story is a series that, each season, will chronicle a real-life crime. This first season will take on the O.J. Simpson murder case.
About: With long-form non-fiction crime the hot new thing in Hollywood, American Crime Story is showing up at just the right time. Executive produced by American Horror Story producer, Ryan Murphy, the show is currently THE buzziest project in town. Set to appear on FX this February, the script is said to be great. It stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as OJ, David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian, John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, and Selma Blair as Kris Jenner. Creators Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski have credits that run all over the map. They wrote The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man on The Moon, and also 1408 and Agent Cody Banks.
Writers: Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (based on The Run of His Life by Jeffrey Toobin)
Details: 60 pages
When it comes to dramatizing the O.J. Simpson case, I have the same reaction I had last year when an O.J. Simpson script appeared on the Black List – How can you possibly make something any more entertaining than what really happened? I still remember that day with the white bronco driving down the highway and, for whatever reason, no cops trying to stop it. Then, of course, there was the circus that was the trial and all the things that came with it. I mean, a fictionalized version of that mess? How could it compare?
I’ll tell you, then, the only reason I’m reading this. Because the backstory is TV titan Ryan Murphy saying, send me the best fucking script you got. He didn’t care what it was about. He just wanted the best script. And they (whoever “they” are – I still haven’t tracked that information down) sent him this. And he loved it. And I find it really hard to turn down anything that claims to be the best script someone’s read. So my fight to champion original ideas will have to wait another day while I take on the most notorious case in history.
The pilot for The People vs. O.J. Simpson breaks its pilot up into segments, each of which introduces us to the major characters. We start off seeing O.J. himself acting squirrely as a limo picks him up at night to take him to the airport.
When a dog walker discovers the dead bodies of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Simpson (O.J.’s ex-wife), the cops are called in, who then alert O.J., who’s now in Chicago. This is when the first element of suspicion arises. O.J. is devastated by his ex-wife’s death, yet doesn’t ask how she actually died.
We move to prosecutor Marcia Clark, the only person who seems to have her shit together. Upon learning that there were repeated domestic violence calls to Nicole’s residence over the past decade, she knows that O.J. is likely the murderer.
In come the defense attorneys. Robert Kardashian, the ex-husband of current reality TV maven Kris Jenner, is a close friend to O.J., and an excellent lawyer to boot. But it quickly becomes clear that “excellent” isn’t going to cut it. The Juice needs the best in the world. Enter the slimy Robert Shapiro, who may or may not (read: HE IS) see this as an opportunity to grow his brand.
And then of course there’s the charismatic Johnny Cochran, who’s on his way to Neverland to help Michael Jackson deal with yet another legal snafu (he realizes he can’t wear lime green because the color freaks Michael out), when he hears about O.J.’s impending arrest. In Cochran’s opinion, Shapiro is a poser who always looks for the easy way out. Cochran pronounces that O.J. needs someone who’s going to go all the way to the finish line with him.
The first episode ends awkwardly in the Kardashian household, with O.J., upon hearing that he must go to jail, holing himself up in Kim Kardashian’s bedroom (yes, you heard that right – although thankfully (unthankfully?) she’s not there), threatening to blow his brains out. As the chaos escalates, O.J. sneaks out the back door and into the famed white Bronco. Where is he going? We’ll have to wait until episode 2 to find out. But I have a feeling it’s a highway. Call it a sixth sense.
The People vs. O.J. Simpson has all the elements of a good story, of course. We have celebrity, entitlement, racism, money, murder, weird personalities. I mean I get why they’re making this. And yet I don’t. It’s just all so… Wikipedia. Like I could’ve read the equivalent of this script, which took 50 minutes, in 5 minutes had I gone to the O.J. Simpson Wikipedia murder page.
But here’s the real problem I have with this series. When you chronicle a famous murder case, there has to be something left to discover. The O.J. Simpson murder case is in its own category. There’s no murder case that has ever been covered more extensively. And so if we’ve already seen everything, what exactly is there left to learn?
When you think about why the current TV sensation, Making a Murderer, is a phenomenon, it’s because none of us had ever heard about it! Every episode revealed something new, exciting, or interesting.
You can extrapolate that to the success of Dateline. The reason the non-fiction murder format has been so popular for so long is because they take a case that we’ve read about in the papers or the internet, and gave us fresh details that helped us see the case in a new and compelling light.
What is left to show us in the O.J. Simpson murder? Going off of this pilot, not a whole lot. And that’s another problem. As writers, you knew that would be the issue going in. That it’s already been documented extensively. So the one thing you have to make sure you do is research the fuck out of everything to find the nuggets that are going to bring new insight into the case. That’s why Making a Murderer is so compelling. They did 10 years of investigating and taped hundreds of hours of interviews to give us the juicy details of that story.
As far as I can tell, American Crime Story doesn’t look like it’s done any more research than those guys who wrote the unauthorized Saved By The Bell movie. And I can say that with confidence because everything everybody said here was something I already knew, if not directly then indirectly.
The few tiny exceptions became the highlights of the script. Watching Johnny Cochran get dressed and discussing why he chooses to wear what he wears felt like keen insight into a master manipulator and showman. Or the awkward moment where a big shot like Robert Kardashian must learn to play backup when an even bigger-shot (Robert Shapiro) enters the room.
Actually, the one mildly surprising element here is how intertwined the Kardashians were in this mess, and that’s only interesting through the prism of knowing who they are today. I mean could you imagine how this would’ve played out had it happened now? Do you think they would’ve featured this on the show? At one point, O.J. Simpson is about to blow his brains out in Kim Kardashian’s room. I think they would have. And gotten boffo ratings for the season finale. Unfortunately, that was the only part of my brain that got charged up during this history recap.
Here’s the thing. And after I say this, I’ll be one. I equate this kind of thing with those Lifetime movies. The overly cheesy fictional recaps of real-life crimes. Mommy Dearest or whatever they’re called. And I don’t know what they’re giving me here that’s supposed to make me think of this as anything better than those movies. I suppose the actors are a little bigger (sorta?). But otherwise this is standard Wikipedia-driven non-fiction screenwriting and to that end, it deserves to be played on Lifetime at 9pm. I can’t figure out why this is supposed to be a big deal other than Ryan Murphy vouching for it.
I’d be curious to hear from you guys. Is anyone interested in seeing this? If so, let me know why. Because I really want to understand the appeal of this show and why it’s become such a big deal.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: There’s no lesson here other than true life crime stories are trending right now. Especially long-form stuff (television, web?). So if you’re into this world, Hollywood just became your playground. But if you’re more into learning something cool, take 20 minutes out of your day and check out this interview/article with the newest studio head in town. There’s some great stuff in there about how studio heads assess projects before greenlighting them.
