Fox finally gets around to airing "The O.J. Simpson Story" tonight, and there are two entirely different ways of looking at this movie.
On the one hand, it's certainly not as bad as it could have been. It flirts with exploitation but, for the most part, stays surprisingly on the line without tipping all the way over into sleaze.And, while this is damning with faint praise, this is a better TV biopic than the stinkers Fox has aired recently covering the lives of Madonna and Roseanne.
On the other hand, the entire question of whether this movie should even have been made festers beneath every scene. And the fact is that the only reason Fox rushed "The O.J. Simpson Story" into production was to make a few bucks through exploiting a horrendous tragedy.
One could certainly make the case that all the network news divisions - not to mention everything from "Geraldo" to "A Current Affair" - have done exactly the same thing. But in those cases, there's at least an attempt at reporting facts.
"The O.J. Simpson Story" is a fictionalized piece of entertainment programming. And that's a major difference.
Like seemingly every fact-based TV movie made these days, "The O.J. Simpson Story" is told through a series of flashbacks.
The movie opens with the aftermath of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson (Jessica Tuck) and Ronald Goldman. O.J. is seen first getting into the limo for his trip to Chicago, then being informed by phone of the murders, then returning to Los Angeles where he's ques-tioned by police.
The movie then flashes back to O.J.'s early days - a pattern that carries through the rest of the movie as he's being questioned by attorney Robert Shapiro (Bruce Weitz.)
There's nothing new here - certainly everyone in America must be aware by now of the basic facts of this case. And the fact that this movie was made several months ago, then shelved until after the jury was chosen, doesn't help. There are some obvious factual errors dealing with details of the case - everything from who found the bodies to the relationship between the two victims.
Although this is purportedly the story of O.J. Simpson's life, it deals almost not at all with football. We see O.J. as a young delinquent, O.J. as an obnoxious young star, O.J. as an unfaithful husband to his first wife - and the occasional scene of O.J. as an apparently caring, giving man.
Several of the more lurid scenes of O.J. and Nicole's life together are portrayed - fits of rage, beatings and so on - but the movie almost goes out of its way to make the incidents seem as much Nicole's fault as O.J.'s.
The most truly distasteful scene is also one of the most understated - O.J.'s three young children from his first marriage playing in the family swimming pool and O.J. cautioning the oldest to look out for the youngest. That youngest child, a daughter, later drowned in the pool.
The movie draws no conclusions about O.J.'s guilt or innocence. Again, there's nothing new here, and the only reason it was produced was the desire by the people who were running Fox last summer to grab some ratings.
(In the defense of the current Fox administration, headed by Entertainment President John Matoian, this movie was not their project, but was left to them by the fired Sandy Grushow. Matoian has gone so far as to cancel future projects of this type, but this movie was already bought and paid for and sitting on the shelf.)
O.J. comes off as both a jerk and a hero. Nicole doesn't come off as much at all.
O.J.'s friend A.C. Cowlings (played by David Roberson) can only be happy with his saintlike portrayal in the telefilm.
And if you sit through this two-hour movie, you really are obsessed with this latest "trial of the century."
THE MARSHAL: ABC's new action series "The Marshal," which previews tonight at 9 p.m. on Ch. 4, is a bit of a surprise.
First of all, despite the title this is not a Western. Jeff Fahey is very appealing as the title character, Deputy United States Marshal Winston MacBride, who's a top gun at bringing in fugitives.
And, secondly, this is a surprisingly funny show.
Not funny as in one-liners and jokes. But not only is MacBride himself wryly funny, but the situations he finds himself in are quite amusing despite the seriousness of the circumstances.
Tonight's premiere has nearly a four-minute opening sequence in which MacBride brings in a desperate, murderous criminal - and you'll probably laugh at how he does it.
The main story involves a woman who's wanted for a radical student bombing decades earlier, but the plot takes several twists and is nicely unpredictable. There's also plenty of action and some great stunts.
And "The Marshal's" second episode, which airs in its regular time slot on Saturday at 9 p.m., will have you laughing out loud.
This is a surprisingly good new series that may just find a home for itself on Saturday nights.
SHE'S IN TROUBLE: Patricia Heaton, who's co-starring in "Women of the House," has already made trouble for her bosses.
She's expecting a baby on May 19, and her character is not in a position to also be expecting.
"With no regard to us this woman went out and got herself pregnant," joked executive producer Linda-Bloodworth Thomason. "Now we are going to have to hide her behind an armoire for the next three months.