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Positive:
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Mixed:
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Critic Reviews
RogerEbert.comFeb 2, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Overall, this is not a piece designed to “expose” the truth behind the OJ Simpson case. It’s more about how exposed the case was in the first place. It’s also just flat-out entertaining television, filled with strong performances from top to bottom and razor-sharp writing.
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Feb 2, 2016
Season 1 Review:
American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson understands the nuances of the moment it’s examining, and its critical bearing on issues still playing out in culture today. It might be the best thing that’s ever aired with Murphy’s name on it, and it’s one of the most compelling TV dramas in recent memory.
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Feb 1, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Against all odds, this tightly written, sometimes stunningly performed 10-part drama avoids all those pitfalls, capturing the tenor of the time and breathing life into the participants. Not to mention re-creating a crackling good courtroom drama that fiction can only envy.
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Feb 1, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Somewhat shockingly, this 10-part, limited series quickly proves itself deeply engrossing and surprisingly entertaining, even though many viewers will know almost every beat of the story. Credit a strong cast--especially “American Horror Story” veteran Sarah Paulson as prosecutor Marcia Clark--and writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, working from Jeffrey Toobin’s book “The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson,” for turning this “trial of the century” into what could be the limited series of the year.
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Jan 28, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Though the verdict polarized the country, most will agree on the merits of The People v. O.J. Simpson as terrific TV. [1-14 Feb 2016, p.18]
Feb 2, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The show's ungimmicky and sociological fly-on-the-wall approach — you'd never guess Ryan Murphy of the outrageous "Glee" and "American Horror Story" is the man behind the curtain — is particularly effective, perhaps because the events were so outrageous on their own.
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Feb 1, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Executive producer Ryan Murphy--best known for “Glee,” “American Horror Story” and “Scream Queens”--here has created his most mature, confident series. He also directed the first two episodes, and his work is free of cheap tricks or gimmicks. The truth is so strange, he doesn’t need them.
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Feb 1, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Simpson so skillfully shapes each personality that in just a few episodes, they almost stop being real people and become televisual characters. It feels less like a true-crime miniseries and more like a rich, layered legal drama, and ironically, the fictional patina makes it easier to engage with and invest in a story the audience assumes it knows inside and out.
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Feb 2, 2016
Season 1 Review:
That Travolta’s camp is a weak link actually points to a greater net positive about American Crime Story: The People V. O.J. Simpson. Though it’s beautifully shot, tautly written, and acted within an inch of its life, the series is uncommonly committed to the truth.
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Feb 2, 2016
Season 1 Review:
In some episodes, it's really good, and even when not everything clicks, it's relentlessly addictive, returning the primacy to a story that was ceded to the tabloids long ago. The miniseries digs deeper than you'd expect, poking at the messy intersections of race, gender, and class that so much TV still shies away from, and it will remind you, time and again, of bits and pieces of the trial you'd completely forgotten about.
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Feb 1, 2016
Season 1 Review:
This so-called “limited series” takes the facts of the Simpson case and, by bending and shaping the emphases of those facts, turns it into a startlingly stirring critique of racism, sexism, and the judicial system that still resonates today. To be sure, the series also contains its share of laughs and excess.
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Feb 2, 2016
Season 1 Review:
[Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski] and their fellow writers do a good job getting the information out, (mostly) without making the dialogue too obviously expository; it happens at times, but it almost can't be helped. As producer and sometimes director, Murphy keeps the production pretty level-headed-- not documentary naturalism, exactly, but close enough for respect.
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Feb 1, 2016
Jan 26, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The show is nourished by Toobin’s contemporaneous reporting, which dives deep into the supporting characters’ motivations.... Some viewers might be turned off by Crime Story’s focus on celebrity and its winking references to the family of Simpson defense attorney Robert Kardashian (Friends star David Schwimmer), of which there are too many. The point, though, stands: the Simpson trial was fueled by fame and, troublingly, generated fame for those involved.
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Jan 25, 2016
Season 1 Review:
For the most part, Murphy & Co. are content to mine this familiar material for pathos and corrosive satire. There isn’t a bad performance anywhere in this production, and while a few of them fail to rise above the level of a very good imitation (Travolta’s Shapiro is all sculpted eyebrows, puckered smirks, and constricted body language), most of them go far beyond that.
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Feb 1, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The performances, especially Gooding’s and Travolta’s, are over the top, but, heck, so were the real-life events. Gooding and Travolta show just how sensational the whole thing was. The trial captured a nation’s imagination, and, more than 20 years later, it still does.
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Jan 27, 2016
Season 1 Review:
The enduring notoriety of the Simpson case and memories of the live courtroom broadcasts are enough to hook viewers regardless of the problems with the series. Some of the problems are minor, others we can sweep under the rug as the show progresses, one is unfortunately insurmountable [casting John Travolta as Robert Shapiro].
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Feb 1, 2016
Season 1 Review:
Even for those who aren't old enough to remember the so-called trial of the century in great detail, this nostalgia-stoking enterprise largely exudes a contemptuous sense of observation. In dramatizations of less knowable incidents, the filmmakers bluntly and mockingly acknowledge the key players' behind-the-scenes travails.
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