Accused is One of the Most Radically Different Network Series in Years - And Potentially One of the Best

 

 

For more than thirty years, Howard Gordon has been one of the most dependable writers in television history, being a valuable talent for the first four seasons of The X-Files, occasionally working on Buffy and Angel. Then he broke through in a big way as Peak TV began, being the producer and lead writer on two of the greatest series of all time: 24 and Homeland. He is one of the few showrunners in history to win Emmys for producing two different dramas.  Even his less successful series, such as Tyrant and Legends, have been interesting experiments.

Now he has returned to Fox, the network where he has enjoyed some of his greatest successes. And Accused, which debuted just after the AFC title game three weeks ago, is as much a radicalization of the format as 24 was twenty years ago. It’s also set in a much more real world than that series and has the potential to be one of the greatest series on network TV in a very long time.

The legal drama has been flattened out so much by Dick Wolf and David E. Kelley over the last thirty five years that at this point you would genuinely think that it had been completely milked dry. Accused, an adaptation of a British drama, does something that neither of those traditionalist – nor if I’m being honest, even those who have made it more entertaining such as Robert and Michelle King in recent years – would have dared to try.  Accused is as close to an anthology series as we’ve seen in decades – a format that fundamentally went out of long ago and has almost entirely been limited to science fiction ever since. You could make an argument that Gordon is, in a way, more qualified than most writers to take this approach – when you spend four years on The X-Files fundamentally writing what becomes known as the ‘Monster of the Week’, a series like this (which the cynics might dismiss as ‘Criminal of the Week’) is that much of a stretch. What makes it radical is that while television may have been revolutionized in many ways in the new Golden Age, no one has ever tried anything this radical with this formula until now.

I’ve seen four episodes of Accused since it premiered and as someone who has been watching television for thirty years and criticizing it for ten, I don’t really know if there’s ever been a series quite like it. The series fundamentally tells a story that is centered around an individual on trial for crime. The story features that week’s major guest star and a pretty good supporting cast, deals with issues that, honestly, most legal procedurals are very heavy handed at dealing with, and spend far more time with the actions that lead up to the crime than the actual trial. This may sound complicated and off-putting, but you never doubt it because of the quality of the writing and the acting.

The pilot dealt with the story of a neurosurgeon played by the always superb Michael Chiklis.  When we first meet him, his teenage son has been kicked out of another prep school because of troublesome behavior. Chiklis has always suspected the worst of this child, thinking he might actually be a sociopath. His wife has been defending him for years (Jill Hennessy, also brilliant) and then one day he goes into his son’s room and finds a notebook that is fundamentally a manifesto and proves just how troubled his son his in. He doesn’t have any clear options as to what to do next.

A few days later he decides to abruptly take him on a camping trip in order to bond. Based on what we have seen Chiklis seems determined to murder his son that day and make the world think its an accident. But at the moment of truth, his son confides in him in a way he just hasn’t before and Chiklis lowers his guard and it seems like there is a moment of bonding. The two come back that night and his character weeps in relief.

I won’t reveal how the episode ends or indeed why Chiklis is on trial in the first place. Suffice to say, it turns out that Chiklis’ fears were warranted and it ends in tragedy. When the episode ends, his wife asks him to tell him the truth about whether he had thought of killing his son that day. The last line of the episode is one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve ever heard a character say in all my years of watching television because I have a feeling a lot of mothers who’ve been in this situation find themselves in this.

There have been three episodes since then, but last night’s was nearly the equal of the pilot. Directed by Clark Johnson, veteran of Homicide and The Wire and one of the most skilled television directors today, it features the story of an African-American father, played memorably by Malcolm Jamal-Warner. A hard working man, in the opening of the episode, he and his wife learn that their ten year old daughter has been molested. They are assisted by an able and compassionate detective, equally well-played by Wendell Pierce (only slightly removed from his own role on The Wire.)

The character becomes obsessed with finding out what has happened to his daughter and spends the next several days trying to get information. He is not helped by his friend Lamar from the streets, a former convict who has no trust in the justice system and refers to Pierce’s character as ‘an overseer’ because of his inaction in the death of a young black man at the hands of the police. Egged on by him, they eventually track down the man responsible and beat him up, but an enraged Lamar goes to far and beats him to death.

The next day the detective shows up aware of the pedophile’s murder and is very sure that Jamal-Warner’s character is involved. Jamal-Warner wants to turn himself in, but Lamar and his brother refuse to, and convince him to lie. Jamal-Warner’s character spends the last half of the episode in personal anguish for his role in it, and is convinced by his wife to do the right thing. Again, I will not reveal the ending but I think its enough to say that Lamar has decided to act in self-preservation and sees no problem in saving himself. That said, the last scene between Pierce and Jamal-Warner is profoundly moving as we see just how badly the trust between African-Americans and the police has faded and why there might be a chance for rebuilding.

Not all four episodes have been of the same quality: an episode that aired two weeks ago featuring a teenage boy and his mistrust of the caregiver he thinks killed his mother honestly didn’t seem like it belonged on the same series as the Pilot and last night’s episode. Frankly it seemed like a cross between a bad Law and Order and a Shondaland procedural. But I think that can be forgiven considering that this is an anthology series and no anthology series ever produces the same quality with every episode. And I have to say I am impressed by the level of guest stars and guest directors that are scheduled to appear in the weeks to come – such undervalued talents as Margo Martindale, Molly Parker and Abagail Breslin are going  to be featured in later episodes, and it looks like they’ve got a good crop of guest directors in tow. Marlee Matlin already directed a superb episode and Billy Porter is scheduled to direct next week’s. In the old days of The Practice, characters like the ones who appear on Accused used to get Guest Actor and Guest Actress Emmy nominations by the boatload. You could definitely see many of these actors doing the same if the Emmys could get their head out of their asses for overblown series like Succession whose characters are about histrionics and not depth. I’ve already seen more examples of pure humanity in four episodes of Succession then in Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder and Succession combined.

Accused managed to break out with a very huge opening but its hard to know if broadcast TV viewers will be willing to stick with it. These days network television is all about formula based drama and its hard to imagine the network where the most radical thing on it right now is The Cleaning Lady will have the patience to keep it on for a whole season. Accused may be the most radical thing any network has tried since the modern classic American Crime debuted in 2015. It was hailed by critics as one of the greatest limited and anthology series of all time, but because it was so dark in its themes  - and nowhere willing to give the light approach that a network heavily invested in Shondaland insisted be on its shows at the time – that I’m frankly astounded it lasted three whole season before ABC finally pulled the plug. And that show aired in an era which was far less polarized about television than it is today: I can imagine many critics on either side being up in arms about the issues it confronts: one side will be convinced that its putting social justice as entertainment, one will argue that’s it trying to use an even-handed approach to major criminal issues that to them are basically shouldn’t even be crimes.

All I know is that Accused is perhaps the best example of what network television needs to do if it wants to get out of the decline of formulas and reboots. I’m amazed that it appears on a network best known for The Masked Singer as reality and the 9-1-1  franchise as its TV hits. This is a network that has no problem killing dead any series that shows a hint of originality without giving it a real chance to succeed. Accused got a big opening. Now I hope Fox keeps backing rather than replacing it next year with 9-1-1 Tulsa or some variation on Name That Tune.

My Score: 4.5 stars.