O Acusado

I saw this on Hulu with no expectations I just watched it. I think the direction, writing and acting are spot on. I only watched the pilot, but I'm looking forward to new episodes. This is a tough story to digest and I was overwhelmed with emotions. I read reviews afterwards and think the few negative ones are clowns. I think the press reviews are pathetic. There's not a lot of great new movies and tv shows. Maybe this isn't the best, but it's better than a lot of new stuff airing today. Try it... you'll know in the first 10 minutes if you should finish or not. The commish gave a solid performance!

Jimmy McGovern's original series was brilliantly written to expose the vagaries of UK law, where people who didn't fit into societal norms but had no intention to harm found themselves up in court and were sentenced/released due to the strict definitions and sentencing guidelines of a particular crime, whether they deserved it or not

It was a plea for a sense of humanity expected of a legal system which found people guilty or innocent based on what most people would call a technicality.

Technicalities in law can work to vindicate the powerful and to punish the meek, but this US series seems to take the entire concept of justice to a different place where good always triumphs.

It's just not very exciting to watch an episode where the conclusion is so easily predictable.

My advice would be to watch the original BBC series which was far more thought provoking than this.

(This review written after watching the first two episodes, FYI)

The first couple of episodes were ok. Overly dramatic, melodramatic I might say, and I thought the "twists" were sort of clever. However the "twists" became predictable quite quickly and are no longer twists. If you know the twist is coming, is it really a twist? The more annoying regularity in the show is the politics. Every show now has a political lecture woven into the plot, and the lecture seems the primary reason the episode was made. I am OK with a "moral to the story", but this is so in your face I feel astonished that they are not asking for money for the cause. I will deleting this from my DVR.

This show "Accused" is reminiscent of the television series "Motive" where each episode reveals the killer and the victim at the beginning; and the rest of the episode details the ongoing investigation. In this show we start with an "accused" and then go back in time through the events that lead up to why the person is "accused." The pacing is similar along with limited use of music and the type of camera angles and relatively lengthy film shots.

What it doesn't have is the same detectives investigating and solving the cases so there is no one to relate to as new characters and situations are introduced in each episode.

So far, so good! I like the time shifting style of storytelling when it's done right and Accused has the right mix of backstory foreshadowing and current trial drama. I've liked Michael Chiklis ever since The Shield so it's good to see him back in the first story.

It begins with Scott's Story. A brain surgeon, Chiklis, suspects his son may be planning a violent school attack. It shows some back story of his son's troubled life and how denial can give way to horrible realizations.

Overall, Accused looks like a good new drama with a formula that works. Every story is different and viewers should enjoy the parade of talented actors chosen to tell the variety of tales that all end up in a courtroom.