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Dear Ann,

It’s hard to tear myself away from my British and Scandinavian detectives, vicars, and vicar-detectives, but occasionally I stray from the corpse-ridden dales and fjords, and have a grisly wallow in true crime closer to home. Recently a young family member told me, with a tone of surprise, that the FX series The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story  is worth watching. It’s streaming on Netflix now, so I gave it a go.

Two episodes in, and the whole sordid tale, and my own life in 1994, came rushing back to me. I was a government trial lawyer at the time. Like everyone else, I was horrified and riveted by the Simpson case, but since my long days were spent stressing about procedural tangles, deposition testimony and motions to do this and that, the last way I wanted to spend my free time was to catch up on that high-stakes hot mess of a case. In those days before Twitter, if you wanted to avoid a news story, it was almost possible.

I’m not sure if I’ll get all the way through the television rendition without having an anxiety attack and/or overwhelming nostalgia for the shouldery suits I used to wear, but so far The People v. O.J. Simpson is a well-told tale of all the ways things can go wrong, for everyone, all the time. There is very little redemption in this story.

There is amusement to be found in some of the casting: Ross from Friends as Robert Kardashian is both ironic and perfect; I’m not so sure about John Travolta as Robert Shapiro.

It’s pretty easy to knit to this one if you followed the case the first time around. The crime scenes and Bronco chase, Marcia’s hair and Johnnie Cochran’s suits, are all burned in the memory. so there is no need to pause the recording to count stitches.

Love,

Kay

17 Comments

  • I resisted this one and then gave in and loved every sordid second of it. When your return to British crime watch River.

  • I think I’ve seen all the British crime and some of the soap opera tto, but I love it so any more suggestions are very welcome. I’m trying to get back into my gradient Baktus.

  • I JUST finished this series last night, watching three episodes in one night — and making my visiting brother watch them with me, which he didn’t regret. It’s not a series you need to watch from episode one to understand, amiright? It sparked a conversation about our feelings about race issues and the OJ case itself. I agree about John Travolta… as one TV critic put it about his performance: “whatever it is he’s trying to accomplish as Bob Shapiro.” At first I loved his almost comic stiffness, but then I wasn’t so sure he was trying to be comic. Anyway… great series. I’ve heard the documentary about the whole case was even better; I saw one episode of it about OJ’s subsequent adventures, the ones that got him where he is now, and it was markedly more sordid that even this tale (except that, thankfully, there were no corpses).

  • Hubbo and I are just about to finish the OJ series that is even more compelling than this factionalized version: ESPN’s 5-part documentary, OJ: Made in America. The filmmaker is truly a genius–he pulls together footage and interviews that totally blow your mind. You go inside OJ’s house, via somebody’s home movies, to see him gloating with his friends. You see the crime scene, which is ghastly. It explains how the combination of celebrity, race, and media combined in a toxic brew. The real Marcia Clark talking about this case is chilling.

    • Viceland (a channel on cable from the HBO series “Vice”/Shane Smith) broadcast the whole thing in one 10 hour binge yesterday. I saw it when it first came out and the street celebration of the not guilty verdict brought back that day for me when I was driving to teach a class in Philadelphia using my usual surface street route that took me through the neighborhoods that were cheering. After that day I took the interstate. When my short term teaching position came up for renewal at Temple, I moved back to the Midwest.
      A further look at this from the guy who gave the defense the Mark Thurman racist cop angle is the book by Jeffrey Toobin, “The Run of His Life.” It was reprinted when the ESPN series first came out.

    • Another vote here for the real documentary, “OJ: Made in America”. Says so much about everything, then and now.

    • Thank you! I think I heard about this and then got it mashed up in my mind with the FX version. I might switch right in the middle!

      • Lol when Hubbo suggested we watch the documentary, we got into a semi-argument because I was all “it’s NOT a documentary there are ACTORS” and he was all “It’s a DOCUMENTARY” and we almost ended our marriage over this.

        Def going to watch this series now. So fascinating.

  • I was supposed to spend this morning catching up on my life! Emails and dishes be damned. There’s vintage Jones of New York calling my name! I’m already halfway through the first episode.

  • I remember this time vividly. I was a Corrections officer working in a California prison. And we were all very concerned about the riots that were threatening and the violence that was threatening to ensue while this was being aired. I think I’ll pass!

    • I would too if I were you. If you can stand it, though, a few Lazy Sundays back I wrote about Anna Deavere Smith’s play about the LA riots after Rodney King; it is really worth seeing and available on YouTube.

  • Bwa ha ha! Jones New York! What a blast from the past. ROFL! As I recall, on a good day I could wear Tahari….but most of the time it was my boxy, sensible friend, Harvé Benard.

    • #brandsofthenineties

      • Tahari, Jones New York, Ellen Tracy, Liz Claiborne, Adrienne Vittadini, Andrea Behar . . .

  • I’ve been binging on BBC America’s Planet Earth. The original series (10 yrs old!) Is being rerun as prep for Planet Earth 2. Something about David Attemborough’s voice and the ravishing pix is very conducive to cranking garter stitch.

  • As an antidote to all that 90’s unpleasantness (although I perfectly understand why it is so watchable!), could I suggest you take a peek at the Brokenwood Mysteries? Shot down here in NZ, similar to Midsomer in nature – but with a definite Kiwi flavour.

  • omgggg I am watching it right now!!! I was still a kid at the time so I don’t even remember most of what happened! I am engrossed!

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