Reviews:
The Critics agree- the best show of the year!
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Entertainment Weekly: “THE BEST NEW SHOW of the season.”
TV Guide: “RIVETING TV…BELIEVE THE BUZZ: The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story is really good— like edge-of-your-seat, a little bit outrageously good…gripping world class television.”
USA TODAY: Review: The glove fits; O.J. trial series guilty of ‘stunning’ performances
All of which would be an academic exercise without a script that keeps the story’s multiple pieces moving in sync and a set of Emmy-worthy performances. Those include turns by Cuba Gooding Jr., who portrays Simpson as explosive and child- like without showing his guilty-or-innocent hand; David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian; Nathan Lane as F. Lee Bailey; Sterling K. Brown as Christopher Darden; Steven Pasquale as Mark Fuhrman, and John Travolta as Robert Shapiro — the broadest performance, in the most broadly written role.
IndieWIRE
Through six episodes, it’s on track to be one of the best first seasons of television ever made, especially considering the cultural climate surrounding its release.
Newsday
Best series of the year so far. Easily.
RogerEbert.com
Alexander and Karaszewski have delivered a drama that’s both as soapy as you’d expect from the man who created Nip/Tuck and surprisingly genuine as historical document. 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.
Guardian
It is a departure for Murphy in many ways and the show, sure to be a hit both commercially and critically, is the finest thing he has produced to date.
Boston Globe
The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story… is a superior effort, a successful attempt both to vividly re-create the original case and to intelligently reframe it from a more knowing 2016 perspective…
As defense attorney Robert Shapiro, John Travolta… embodies the script’s take on how class and privilege can transcend race.
The Wrap
John Travolta, also an executive producer, does his best work in two decades as O.J.’s pompous, insecure attorney, Robert Shapiro. It’s one of those insidiously brilliant performances in which the actor looks exactly like his character
News & Observer
No matter who else is in a scene with him, Travolta is the person your eyes are drawn to. Travolta commits to this, “absolutely 100 percent” (if I may borrow a famous line from O.J.’s “not guilty” plea).
CinemaBlend
John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, and this is exactly the kind of Travolta you want every time the actor gets a role. He’s cocky, conniving and sharp, but plays all the cards as if he’s not hiding anything up his sleeve.
IndieWire
John Travolta, the two-time Oscar nominee who dives head first into the self-indulgent shoes of defense attorney Robert Shapiro… as he sells the character internally as much as he does externally.
Denver Post
There are numerous surprises, including how riveting the tale is in this telling…
John Travolta is hilarious as grandstanding Robert Shapiro
Globe and Mail
In the annals of great television, the 10-part drama emerges instantly as a classic, a showpiece of tour-de-force TV storytelling. It’s that good, that rich and compelling.
Salon.com
Its brilliance to my mind is how it carefully stokes the fires of righteous indignation, so that by the sixth episode… the fact that this all actually happened this way is an inescapable, haunting fact, looming over the viewer like a vulture.
Orlando Sentinel
Scandalously entertaining, The People v. O.J. Simpson takes viewers back to the 1994-95 mass-media circus that was dubbed “the trial of the century.”
The Verge
While the “trial of the century” is the biggest selling point for The People v. O.J. Simpson, it’s these smaller moments that make the series so endlessly compelling.
Washington Post
If you lived it the first go-around, you’ll probably be amazed at how The People v. O.J. Simpson sucks you right back in, even if you believed yourself immune or permanently numb to its circumstances and outcome.
TV Insider
Though the verdict may have polarized the country, most everyone is likely to agree on the merits of The People v. O.J. Simpson as absolutely terrific TV.
Vox
The series makes it riveting to watch Simpson’s legal team cook up strategies that are seemingly impossible to succeed, because you know what’s coming. They can’t possibly sell any of this to the jury – but you know they do.
We Got This Covered
This is Murphy’s finest and most fascinating creation yet, a whirlwind of richly drawn characters and riveting storytelling that soars all the more for its boldness surrounding race and class.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Insightful and even important as it is, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story succeeds best as riveting entertainment. Just as with the original trial, it’s hard to stop watching.
Slate
Ultimately, watching the trial play out as a fait accompli gives it the heft and structure of a classical tragedy in which everyone is undone by his or her seeming strengths turned to weaknesses.