From real life, to book, to miniseries

A show I’ve been into over the last several weeks is The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story currently airing on FX. Based on the book The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson, it delves into the circus that was the O.J. Simpson murder trial. With it, we see the events that occurred before and during the trial. So far, each episode does a pretty good job of segmenting each block of events. The first episode showing the crime scene and the LAPDs suspicion of O.J., the second episode telling the Bronco chase, and the third episode describing what both the defendants and prosecutors were doing post arrest and pre court trial. Obviously there’s still more to the season as the trial hasn’t occurred yet, but I’d have to guess it’s probably going to be a six episode season.

The show is compelling because it was something I was aware at the time, but I was too young to understand the details. I was ten years old when O.J. showed the nation you can run away from the cops in a slow speed car chase. I knew he was accused of committing murder because there was non-stop coverage from the local news agencies at the time (I live in So Cal, so I received the LA affiliates), and since my parents were big on current events, I just absorbed what they were viewing.

But being ten/eleven, even though I was seeing these events unfold, most of it went over my head. I was ignorant of how the court system worked, I was unware of the connection between the case and the and the LA riots I saw a few years earlier, and I didn’t bother connecting all who was involved with the case from both sides of the proceedings.

American Crime Story really helps in connecting all of those dots. I get to fill in personalities to names I heard of related to the case like Robert Shapiro, Marcia Clark, Johnnie Cochran, and Robert Kardashian. Although, the name drops on the show are kind of annoying. This is especially true in regards to the Kardashian clan. Whenever they show the kids: Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, and Rob, who at the time were around the tween age, really irks me because it seems like the writers are just trying to get the audience to point at the TV and say something like “omg, that’s Kim when she was a teenager!! They were so young back then!” Blargh.

With the show ramping up to the court hearings, it looks like the best part of the show has yet to come, and with it high amounts of drama. Even though I know the outcome of the case, I’m still glued to the TV waiting to see what happens next. I guess that goes to show how good the series is at presenting the details for this semi-recent-non-fiction-story; as where The Walking Dead is good at the opposite with a story of fiction-set-in-a-time-I-don’t-know-if-it’s-in-the-present-or-past.

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