Have any of you seen the promos for a new mid-season series on ABC about attorneys who fight to free death row inmates who are innocent? The first episode, starring Kyle MacLachlan, premieres tonight at 10pm ET/PT:
“Brothers and Sisters”: Hoping to right judicial wrongs, members of the National Justice Project re-evaluate the case of a 32-year-old former junkie who is in prison for killing her father while robbing his house.
Is it a hopeful sign of the times that there’d be a new major series about innocent inmates on primetime Sunday night TV? Will the pendulum swing back on the death penalty? Will shows like this help to put a stop to the death penalty?
Supposed to be loosely based on the various Innocence Projects. One of the most well-known is at Northwestern’s Center for Wrongful Convictions. Art imitates life.
Just set up the DVR to catch the first episode…it looks promising from the previews, and I’ve had a crush on Kyle McLachlan since Dune. (I may be the only person who liked that movie…never really got into the books though.)
I’m hoping the show might at least swing the pendulum away from the “if you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear” mentality that has people shrugging when they hear of illegal wiretaps, racial profiling, and other outrages perpetrated by those in charge in the name of the “war on crime” and “war on terror”. But being on at 10pm on a Sunday, when most of Middle America is heading for bed in anticipation of an early workday Monday, may be an early kiss of death. (Though with tomorrow a holiday for most folks, it might draw enough eyeballs tonight to get folks to set their recording devices for future episodes.)
ONE CAN ONLY HOPE!!!
I Agree!!!
The Pendulum has been going in the Direction of Society getting out of the Killing Business, even as to Mass Killing i.e. Wars and Most Of Those Are ‘Truely’ Innocent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I dunno, Susan. It’s going to be a tough call, what with Flavor Flav’s new bachelor-type show debuting at the same time. Oh dear . . .what to do? (Oh yeah, Flav’s show will be rebroadcast no less than 30 times before the next new episode, so that should be an easy call ;^) I was mostly bummed that there was no new West Wing to be viewed tonight – sigh.
Good night!
And least their be any doubt about which is being promoted more the tv guide has a small explanation about this new show but the new Flavor Fav’s promo takes up half the page.
I’m becoming way too cynical and am surprised that a show like this even got greenlighted. However I hope it’s well done and will shed some light on the very sorry state of affairs our legal system is in and point up how many innocent people are on death row or have been executed.
The more the issue is highlighted, the better; ‘there is no such thing as bad PR.’ I really believe the tide is slowly turning in this country. People can readily get behind innocence.
I wonder if they’ll only show how difficult it is now under ‘habeas reform’ to even get an evidentiary hearing in federal court? They’d better dramatize the losses that are reality for most defendants day in & out in this country’s courts. JAck McCoy even loses a sometimes . . .
Unfortunately, I saw some really horrible reviews for the show this weekend, which doesn’t bode well for the show.
This is one of the reviews I read: ‘In Justice’ is more of an injustice.
I got drowsy and fell asleep half way through. The “antics” in the group scenes were goofy and phony.
i’d purposely not read any reviews so I could see it for myself, but I’m not surprised the reviews weren’t enthusiastic.
Great subject matter. Kyle is a very good actor. Sigh.
However, it can’t possibly be any worse than the Law & Order SVU and Criminal Intent series — their scripts are so bad, they’re funny — or that awful Without A Trace. Criminal Minds is about the only show of that ilk that I watch these days.
Adam worked on Injustice for several days last year (heh), and when he explained the premise, I was excited about it.
Then, last night… I missed the premiere. So I can’t even offer my opinion of it. That review WAS harsh… but it was also in USA Today, so, imho, not exactly definitive criticism, if you dig me.
It’s a GREAT premise, with great promise, if you’ll forgive the poetry… Depending on ABC’s commitment to it, the writers still have a chance to make it work.
Let’s hope so.
The American people need to get a realistic view of the justice system, the prison system, and the appeals system.
We need radical reforms in all areas too. I used to work for a defense attorney and dealt with a lot of recidivist criminals. All prison did was shut them off from society and, if given enough time, render them — almost all of them — incapable of living in the “regular” world.
It drives me nuts when I hear people say, “They should take away TV from prisoners. Let ’em sit in their cells day in day out.” Without any realization of what deprivation of normal social outlets does to inmates. (And TV is important, I think, because it keeps them in touch a bit with what’s going on “outside.”)
The show has great potential as a educational tool. Last night highlighted Ineffective Assistance of Counsel & very neatly showed how DNA is not the be-all & end-all of evidence, but like anything else needs to be contextualized; it isn’t always the smoking gun CSI enthusiasts would like to think.
Overall, I wasn’t impressed by the drama or writing.
I’d love to see the show dramatize a situation like what is described in this I received last week:
…either the Democrats would need to suddenly decide that seeming tough on “law and order” issues was unnecessary, or we’d need to start voting for a party whose leaders don’t think that killing fellow citizens for political gain makes moral sense.
As the current politics of the Iraq War should make clear, public opinion can swing the right way on an issue, yet both major parties can circle the wagons and refuse to do the right thing.
I’ve posted this story before, but I’ll post it again. When I was a girl, my mom held campaign fundraisers for Dan Evans, who became a four-term governor of Washington state.
Evans was outspoken in his opposition to the death penalty in the 1950s and early 1960s.
He won every race. Four terms as governor. One term as U.S. Senator (he hated the Senate, so quit).
Of course, the Republican party was different in those days, and moderates like Evans — who was also great on environmental issues — were tolerated.
Recently, because of his too-liberal views, Evans couldn’t even get a seat on the state delegation going to the national convention.