Review: ‘The People v. O.J. Simpson,’ Seen This Time in Double Vision

On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald L. Goldman were brutally murdered outside Ms. Simpson’s Los Angeles home. In the trial that followed, argues “The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” our current social conflicts and media culture were born.

The 10-episode series, starting Tuesday on FX, looks at that case from two decades ago and sees today an embryo. The power, and the competing claims, of identity politics. The marathon news stories packaged as entertainments. Above all, the idea that black and white Americans can look at precisely the same scene and see entirely different realities.

The show acquits itself well. Despite the audience’s knowledge that the former football star Orenthal James Simpson will be found not guilty (history is not a spoiler, sorry), the series is absorbing, infuriating and, yes, thoroughly entertaining.

And despite the program’s well-chewed-over subject matter — the Bronco! the glove! Kato Kaelin! — it is revelatory, though not about the murders. You probably have an opinion as to whether O. J. did it. “The People v. O. J. Simpson” is not interested in sharing its own, though the book it’s based on, “The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson,” by Jeffrey Toobin, couldn’t be more explicit: “Simpson murdered his ex-wife and her friend.” (The author was a consultant on the series.)

Instead, “The People,” which was developed by the screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (“The People vs. Larry Flynt,” “Ed Wood”) and has Ryan Murphy as an executive producer, focuses on the legal process. Like the true-crime sensations “Serial” and “The Jinx,” it’s conscious of the ways justice is achieved, denied or bought. You’ve seen “Making a Murderer”? Get ready for “Unmaking a Murderer.”