So I did stay with the series to tonight's end, and it did improve, both in getting a little more balanced, and in terms of the quality of its story telling and acting. But it had a long way to travel from the first two episodes to get to good, and it never really got there.
One of the very big creative problems with the project turned out to be John Travolta; While the series suffered from the same problem that Oliver Stone's film "W" had - putting more effort into impersonation of recent historical figures than telling their stories - as the series went on I thought most of the main actors did a decent job of getting inside their characters, which the glaring exception of Travolta's Shapiro. One reason the first two episodes were so bad it became apparent is that Shapiro dominated the early part of the story. While the script does honestly portray the trial errors made by the prosecution, and allows that Johnny C and even F. Lee were more than just media caricatures, I think it still failed badly to capture the truth of the trial. It was determine to mindlessly recapitulate the narrative that a mostly Black jury was either too ignorant to understand the overwhelming scientific evidence or too emotionally triggered by its addiction to racial victimization to see past the one bad apple racist cop. The biggest flaws here were insufficient attention paid to the role of Barry Scheck (and what I think was the complete erasure of his partner Peter Neufeld) & failure to pay off the early attention to the timeline evidence. More important than Furman and the glove that did not fit in this trial was how completely and totally Scheck and Neufeld destroyed the credibility of the LA Crime Lab; the series shows a little of this, but makes it seem like a minor aspect, rather than the dominant factor in the not guilty verdict that it was. Johnny Cochran's mantra and charisma may have made a majority of the jury want to acquit OJ, but Scheck and Neufeld provided them with the actual justification to do so. What Marcia Clark and this film never seem able to understand is that the not guilty verdict was not based on a refusal to understand or accept the DNA evidence, but a very reasonable and justified refusal to accept the reliability and validity of blood evidence handled by an incompetent crime lab. And why did the show spend time setting up a potential problem with the State's timeline theory and evidence, and then never show us that by the end of the trial it had completely blown up in their face (or did I somehow miss an episode, which is possible)? Even with the crime lab problems, even with the racist Furman testimony, even with Marcia's tone deaf Closing Statement, they might have gotten a conviction if they had presented a reasonably plausible and consistent explanation of the time line that got OJ from the drive-through to the murder scene, past the various supposed witnesses, and into the Limo as required. Or, if they simply had not given a specific time line at all, rather than one that was full of holes and self-contradictions and simply could not possibly be correct. On Sunday, 14 February 2016, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > I do want to get into the entertainment and creative issues a bit. I will > not claim to have watched the OJ trial as closely as Kevin did, but I did > follow it very closely - apparently a hell of a lot more closely than the > people who made this series. But there are not just factual errors here - > though these grate in particular since so much of this is easily available, > well known and in the public record. But the creative choices are really > baffling. > > As I heard about this show I was pretty much determined not to watch it; I > assumed it would be a tabloid ratings grab not worthy of much time. Then I > noticed it was on FX, a cable network that has brought some of the best > drama to television in the last decade. That track record was enough to get > me to watch it - I have now seen two episodes (is that all that have aired? > I am watching it On Demand and have lost track of actual airing dates). For > me, the abiding question about this production is: "Why is it so bad, when > it is backed by a distributor which has had such a great track record?" If > you told me it was being aired on E! or Oxygen I would understand, but FX? > Can this just be a pure ratings payday for those guys? > > The amount of exposition they put into the mouths of the key players is > absurd, on the order of: "pardon me, I am an angry black assistant DA who > is down with his people and skeptical of the LAPD, can you tell me where > the bathrooms are?". As cringe-worthy is the number of call-outs to a > generation or two that apparently knows and cares more about the tabloid > star daughters of Rob Kardashian than his role in the story being told. But > what surprises and irritates me the most so far is how much of an apology > the series appears to be for Clark, Gil Garcetti and the LAPD. It may be > that later episodes will flip this script, but that assumes a minimum level > of quality that would keep the rational viewer around long enough to see it. > > By the end of that trial I thought OJ Simpson had probably killed his > ex-wife and Ron Goldman. I was also certain that the prosecutors, LAPD > detectives and Crime Lab and bungled their job so badly that it would be a > violation of their oath for a jury to find him guilty based on the evidence > actually presented in court in that trial (as opposed to evidence discussed > in the media, or presented at the later civil trial). Of course it is > tragic when a probably murderer gets away with it, but in a free society it > is even more of a tragedy when the reason he got away with it is the > arrogance, incompetence and prejudice of the representatives of the state. > Any attempt at telling this story that somehow manages to make Marcia Clark > the victim is profoundly and irredeemably flawed. > > > On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 12:24 PM, Kevin M. <[email protected] > <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','[email protected]');>> wrote: > >> ... or whatever the f*ck they're calling it. I won't speak to its >> entertainment value, or the creative/stylistic choices made, or how >> sympathetic the series is to certain extremely unsympathetic people. I will >> say -- as someone who earned notoriety for merely watching the trial -- >> that I could write an entirely new book on the number of things that were >> wrong in the first episode. And I mean I can get into the smallest >> details, like the melt-point of the Ben & Jerry's ice cream found at the >> crime scene, or the amount of traffic on Bundy the night of the murder, or >> how long it really took for crime scene photos to reach Marcia Clark, or >> which DDA was actually in charge of the Simpson case, but honestly, I'm not >> going to bother. I watched the trial 20-years-ago. I wrote extensively >> about the trial 20-years-ago. Two people are still dead, two children grew >> up without a mother, and I'm not watching any additional episodes of this >> crapfest. >> >> -- >> Kevin M. (RPCV) >> >> -- >> -- >> TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "TV or Not TV" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected] >> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','[email protected]');> >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected] >> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','[email protected]');> >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "TVorNotTV" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] >> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','tvornottv%[email protected]');> >> . >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- Sent from Gmail Mobile -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. 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