The trajectory for Ryan Murphy productions are usually this: begin stylish, exciting and promising and then go south. Sometimes it takes a while, as it did with “Glee,” sometimes it happens much more quickly, as in “American Horror Story.” In “Scream Queens,” it happened during the course of the two hour premiere.
So there wasn’t a lot of hope when he decided to start his second anthology series, depicting a different true crime tale each season. And indeed, the initial installment of “American Crime Story,” titled “The People vs. O.J. Simpson” (FX, 10 p.m.) seems a little too giddy about reliving the overhyped Crime of the last Century, playing up the Kardashian connection to today’s famous siblings (who run around prominently in the background) and casting it as if that was the art form in itself, HBO style.
It starts with John Travolta with enhanced eyebrows and almost Kabuki mannerisms as the lawyer Robert Shapiro, one of TV’s “Friends,” David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian and Cuba Gooding (“Show me the money”) Jr. as Simpson. Up and down, the cast is filled with big names, from Selma Blair as Kris Jenner and Sarah Paulson, a prominent member of so many seasons of “Horror Story” as Marcia Clark.
The crazy exposition and adjustment to stars as names makes the whole thing look the picture of exploitive, until soon after the Bronco chase (in next week’s episode) it settles into the details of the case itself. Since this is based on Jeffrey Toobin’s book on the case (and he is retained as a consultant on the project) that moves the slick production and crisp scenes into the realm of the best of crime storytelling for an audience both whetted by “Making of a Murderer” and ready to revisit the twists of the Simpson case.
The script by a team that includes Maya Forbes, Wally Wolodarsky, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszweski picks up steam as it flicks to each legal team’s huddling, which by now includes Nathan Lane as F. Lee Bailey, Courtney B. Vance as Johnnie Cochran, Sterling K. Brown as Christopher Darden, Bruce Greenwood as Gil Garcetti, Christian Clemens as Bill Hodgkin, Evan Handler (the sidekick on “Californication”) as Alan Dershowitz, and Rob Morrow as Barry Scheck.
And, like a similarly revealing ESPN documentary on the Simpson case later this summer, presents the case as part of a time in Los Angeles history that begins with the Rodney King case and the L.A. riots, at a time when relations between the police and the black community were at its boiling points — a time, needless to say that reflects recent history in the United States, and ongoing strife that never went away.
That emphasis keeps “The People v. O.J. Simpson” from being merely stunt casting (here’s more: Connie Britton as Faye Resnick and Robert Morse as Dominick Dunne) or tabloid rehash and suggests a more ambitious goal in reflecting race relations and the justice system through a celebrity trial.
And despite any initial worries about Karashian emphasis, or any Murphy contempt for his audience, it moves at an exhilarating pace to really top notch television.
If you don’t start it tonight, you’ll be playing catch up in binging sessions later.