The executive producer and director of a TV series based on a book written about the 20-year-old O.J. Simpson trial in promoting the series that’s supposed to air next year said this in an interview:
“Our goal is to show you the behind-the-scenes mechanizations of crimes, stuff that you didn’t know… When I read the scripts, I didn’t know half the stuff [that occurred]. I’m like, ‘That happened? That happened?’
Here was my reaction:
The reason you “didn’t know half the stuff [that occurred]” is because it didn’t. Maybe not half, but a lot of what is being portrayed in this series didn’t. The reason you’re like, ‘That happened? That happened?’ is because it didn’t. I was there, behind the scenes and in the courtroom every day of the trial. This series is just repeating stuff that was reported in the media and ended up in a book, but either never happened or was distorted or mischaracterized.
If Mr. Ryan wanted to do a TV series with “stuff you didn’t know,” he would have based it on Anatomy of a Trial: Public Loss, Lessons Learned from The People vs. O.J. Simpson.
Too bad he’s putting on a show billed as telling the public what really happened at and behind the scenes of that trial. Unfortunately, it’s not only repeating stuff as it didn’t really happen, but making up entirely new stuff that didn’t really happen either.
Anatomy of a Trial blog 