The Fix

The Fix is not sophisticated drama, but it is smarter-than-average melodrama and Ms. Clark’s involvement adds an opportunity for viewers to play armchair psychologist.

The series does better the less it makes you think of Simpson--which is to say, your own opinion of that case. ... Akinnuoye-Agbaje is a fine actor who is nothing like O.J. Simpson;, and Cohen is obviously enjoying himself as a creep in an expensive suit.

Perhaps foremost, the show is smartly cast -- not only in terms of the leads but around the edges, including Scott Cohen as Sevvy's sleazy defense attorney (given the production auspices, would there be any other kind?) and Robin Givens as the actor's ex-wife, whose loyalty comes at a price.

The Fix looks like something you’ve seen before.

The locales are both lush and texture free; the characterizations are shallow; the writing is geared to the attention deprived. The setup is captivating--it captivated America for years. But people engage in conversations they’d never have. ... Rather than confine its point of view to Maya, the show gives us “Sevvy” in very private moments, during which Mr. Akinnuoye-Agbaje gives a marvelous portrayal of an innocent man.

The Fix hits too close to the bone. Whatever Marcia Clark’s disclaimers, this is all about her and a case that remains dirty to the touch.

Marcia Clark, the failed O.J. Simpson prosecutor, is one of the writers and executive producers behind ABC's new legal drama The Fix, and she clearly believes revenge is a dish best served as a TV dinner: stale, overcooked, and tasting like cardboard.

This show is as goofy as it sounds and twice as contrived. ... But if you’ve been missing Akinnuoye-Agbaje (“Lost”) and Tunney (“The Mentalist”), it’s also a fairly standard, paint-by-numbers ABC drama.

The more the predictably prickly Maya, wounded by defeat the show can’t or won’t complicate, sits at the show’s center, the more it suffers. The series revolves around its Clark figure. ... It is powered solely by Clark’s resentment. And though it’s rocket fuel powerful enough to keep The Fix watchable, it forecloses any insight from a figure who may, decades later, still be too close to a story that, ultimately, is not solely her own.