FXWhen you've got managed to put together the year's most critically-acclaimed and most Emmy-nominated program, chances are you're going to be asked to entertain the notion of a second season. In the case of The People v. O.J. Simpson, that would mean exploring the months and years following the fateful verdict that set O.J. Simpson free after being accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
And it's not anything the producers of the hit FX limited series have any interest in pursuing.
Executive producer Brad Simpson was posed the question during the show's panel at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, where he quickly quashed any hopes at seeing Cuba Gooding Jr. step back into Simpson's shoes.
"We've been pitched that. First of all, we don't want to overstay our welcome," he admitted. "I really feel like this was closed off."
And if you're really jonesing for more O.J., Simpson has the perfect prescription. "I that that Ezra [Edelman's] documentary [ESPN's five-part mini-series O.J.: Made in America,] which was great, really explores that in a substantive way," he said before explaining why the aftermath of the trial wouldn't allow for the same feel delivered by the ten hours of the first installment. "And, you know, you don't have the same complexity of characters. That show would just be about O.J., I think. What we have here is…an Altman-esque approach where you have all these characters colliding. I don't think you'd get that, so I think the case is closed for us on O.J."
That said, the producers have seen at least one attempt at breathing new life into the O.J. Simpson story floating around town, albeit a remarkable strange one that turns the whole thing into a comedy. "I will say maybe one of the biggest treats after the fact was two writers in town wrote a spec script that is episode one of season two of The People v. O.J. Simpson. And it's 40 pages, they did so much work, it's mind-blowing," executive producer Larry Karaszweski revealed. "It's [Robert] Shapiro having a party in Malibu, but he doesn't want to invite some people and O.J. keeps on trying to hang out with [Robert] Kardashian. But they captured the voices really well, but added a sitcom element to it. We were just weeping laughing."
While we won't get a second season of The People v. O.J. Simpson, we will be getting a second installment of the anthological series, this time focused on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. While the writer's room is in its early days and there were no major announcements to be made about which cast members from the first installment might be returning, Simpson was able some insight into the new season.
"You will have the famous people and you'll also have the people that weren't famous during Katrina...Every year of the show will change and morph based on the crime that we're exploring," he revealed. "Really it's going to be about two things. One is just the intensity of what it was like to be there on the ground, to be in that pressure cooker, but also thematically, the bigger crime, which is that Katrina was something that was predictable, that we weren't prepared for even though we knew it was going to happen. And like O.J., I think it turns a lens back on America and shows some uncomfortable truths about it."
Which The People v. O.J. Simpson stars do you want to see in Katrina: American Crime Story? Sound off in the comments below.