TV viewers choose Simpson over Madoff in crime stories

The owner, whose name will be revealed on Tuesday’s show, says he’s only put around 20 miles on the auto since having it, but he invited INSIDE EDITION’s Jim Moret along for a drive. Written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski; directed by Ryan Murphy.

The installment also highlighted some of the more egregious absurdities surrounding the O.J. Simpson case, including the surreal press conference by Simpson’s attorneys Robert Shapiro (John Travolta) and Robert Kardashian (David Schwimmer), during which Simpson’s purported suicide note was inexplicably read aloud to the media. Shapiro and Kardashian both assumed O.J. took his life after reading the notes left behind. On the last minute of shooting on the second day, we got the very last shot we needed.

Most chillingly, we spend some time inside the Bronco, as O.J. sobs and apologizes while holding a loaded pistol to his head. He stages an absurd press conference to announce that he’s as “shocked as anyone” by this turn of events. It feels like it wants to educate us on what happened and why; it wants to humanize and explain the behaviour of all the famous people involved in the case, like Marcia Clark (Sarah Paulson), who was not the incompetent that late-night jokes made her out to be. “God forbid a celebrity should do a perp walk”, she complains.

The notorious ride was reported to have been sold for $200,000 in 1996 to an anonymous buyer, but shifted hands several times since. “That’s Daddy!” Kim (I’m going to assume) shrieks in delight; later, when reporters can’t quite pronounce their surname, the children exasperatedly spell it out to the TV, as if they already know how many reporters will memorize its spelling a generation later. “O.J. never gave back”. This prompts one of the Darden’s young neighbors to respond, “Well he’s got the cops chasing him, he’s black now!”

Johnnie Cochran, watching Shapiro essentially throw O.J. under the bus from the sidelines, coolly dressed Robert down for turning on his client and then used O.J.’s chase as an excuse to shine a light on the LAPD’s racism. It’s a ideal example of how it’s not always about the role you’re auditioning for. Signs of tension to come, perhaps? It’s the prosecution’s job, they’ve got the burden of proof.

Simpson said the primary goal of the series is not to provide a blow-by-blow replay of the events – or make an argument for guilt or innocence – but to show viewers what was happening off-camera and to dissect how a combination of prosecution overconfidence, defense shrewdness and the LAPD’s rocky history with the city’s black community planted the idea of reasonable doubt in the jury.

“No matter what you think if he (Simpson) is guilty or innocent, these are two families that were shattered and I really felt embarrassed about how I had (felt)”. They air the live chase and interrupt the National Basketball Association finals to show the footage of him on the freeway. The phone is ringing off the hook because so many people are obsessively glued to their television screens; they want pizza because this auto chase is, in some perverted way, another piece of riveting entertainment with O.J. Simpson at its center. Cut to the kids back at home, spelling it out and chanting it sing-song.

Much of the time it spent examining the situation, while also peppering in facts people might know about the chase, like how Al Cowlings owned the same white Bronco as O.J. and that’s what they were driving on the highway.

Indeed, the Kardashians would still make a name for themselves if not for this case – oh, that sex tape – but it was their father who first introduced them.