Accused (2023)

Accused offers well-cast, engrossing mini-mysteries with twists viewers (mostly) won't see coming. In the Dark Ages of broadcast TV, that qualifies as a glimmer of light.

Over the first five episodes that were presented to critics for review, the show largely lives up to its billing as a promising freshman series, telling a diverse array of stories that illustrate the blurring divide between guilt and innocence in today’s world.

Nothing is clear-cut, but the methodology of the storytelling—a kind of multiple cliff-hanger strategy—is close to irresistible. ... “Accused” may be out to provoke, but it scores more hits than misses. And its sins of indulgence are ultimately well-intended.

[The “Accused” premiere] made me want to see Chiklis in a series again, maybe playing against his tough-guy type. Future episodes deliver diminishing returns.

Because Accused manages to tell the story of how the accused in each episode finds themselves in that position, and does so without a lot of gaps, makes the series worth a look.

It's broadcast television for those looking for something deeper than broadcast television, and cable television for those who don't have the attention span.

Even though “Accused” moves from city to city and case to case each week, and there are different directors behind the camera, there’s a certain sameness to the visual tones; the series has the competent but not particularly stylish look of a crime procedural from the 1990s.

“Accused” sets out to tell all its characters’ stories with the sort of detail they deserve, but ultimately it falls short. Though crime and punishment is the overarching theme, human intricacy is the true victim here.

There’s not enough ballast, enough sense of who these characters are outside the most extreme moments of their lives, to keep the show balanced. One remembers a function lawyers and judges play on shows like these: They’re old pros who’ve seen it all, and so correct for the defendants’ tendencies to experience wild emotional swings. Those swings, on “Accused,” are watchable and a lot of fun, but they also mean the show sheds more heat than light.

Without much insight to share, catharsis to offer or even a particularly interesting tone or style to grab us, Accused becomes just another so-so crime drama in an ocean teeming with them.