So, it’s been twenty-some years, and O.J. Simpson is all the rage on television, once more.  I’ll admit it: I was reticent, at first.  To be fair, I was reticent in 1994; because I was pissed that so many of the television shows I watched were being preempted for coverage of a car-chase, and a trial.  Many would say “the” trial (to wit – People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson).  No matter whether I was at the airport, in the car, at home, in a restaurant – there was O.J. 

Then, he came to Las Vegas, robbed someone at Palace Station, and was finally put away for most of what remained of his life.  Amen.  Karma, etc.

Then Ryan Murphy (whose oeuvre I adore) came along and cast a slew of big-time actors in the first season of his newest anthology, American Crime Story – a 10-part miniseries on FX, entitled The People v O.J. Simpson; and before you could say “Rockingham” America was transported back to the Brentwood of the mid-Nineties. 

And once again, the whole television industry is hoping on for the ride (and the ratings).  Just last week, my DVR recorded The Secret Tapes of the O.J. Case: The Untold Story (originally aired last September, on LMN); and O.J. Speaks: The Hidden Tapes (originally aired last October, on A&E).  I deleted both without watching either.  I did, however watch Dateline NBC’s two-hour special, this past Sunday, The People vs O.J. Simpson: What the Jury Never Heard, if for no other reason that I wanted to see how good of a job the casting was on ACS (pretty damned good).

I’ll admit it – I’m hooked, more to Team Murphy’s Hollywood version than I ever was to the actual goings-on in Los Angeles (except for Dominick Dunne’s 1997 novel Another City, Not My Own: A Novel in the Form of a Memoir that I positively devoured in a matter of days).  I’ve been unable to take my eyes off of Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark, and I find Courtney B. Vance simply electric as Johnnie Cochran.

Meanwhile, don’t mistake the tabloid urgency of American Crime Story with the slow-simmer of ABC’s American Crime – the A+ drama anthology (now in its second season) starring Felicity Huffman, Timothy Hutton, Lili Taylor, Hope Davis, Connor Jessup, André Benjamin (aka André 3000), and the incredible Regina King (who won an Emmy and earned a Golden Globe nom for her role in American Crime’s first season).  Also, this June, ESPN will be airing a five-part miniseries entitled O.J.: Made in America.

When all is said and done, with regards to Uncle Juice (who is apparently eligible for parole, in 2017), I am reminded of Chris Rock – who, in his hilarious 1996 HBO Comedy Special Bring the Pain, poignantly intoned “That shit wasn’t about race… That shit was about fame.  If O.J. wasn’t famous, he’d be in jail right now.  If O.J. drove a bus, he wouldn’t be O.J.  He’d be Orenthal the Bus-Driving Murderer.”

American Crime Story: The People v O.J. Simpson
An FX Original Series | Tuesdays at 10pm on FX
Click HERE for info and clips

Get into it!
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