I love political dramas more than anybody and I was quite the fan of Ryan Murphy’s American Crime Story: The People Vs OJ Simpson but I was very hesitant to embrace Murphy’s upcoming ACS: Impeachment, which will tell the tale of Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. Why was I hesitant to get excited about the show? Because FX planned to debut the series in September 2020, literally weeks before Americans go to the polls to vote for president. In a nation that is this divided, anything can swing votes. Maybe I am being a bit dramatic but a much-hyped public re-telling of Clinton’s creepy misdeeds from the 90s could cause some people to reignite their hatred for all things Clinton which wouldn’t exactly be great for the party trying to replace our current commander-in-chief. I swear to God, if a damn TV show gives us four more years of covfefe…
Well, maybe I shouldn’t be so worried. After months of speculation and rumor, it seems pretty certain that American Crime Story: Impeachment will definitely miss its initial 2020 premiere date.
Speaking with Collider, Murphy more-or-less confirmed that we have to wait awhile for Impeachment. And while the COVID-19 pandemic likely had something to do with the delay, Murphy says the change is due to doing things right.
”In the case of Impeachment, the scripts are fantastic. Slow and steady wins the race with that one. We’re in no rush to make them. We just want them to be good…The writing is hard on those shows because you have to be writing about something, I think, very American and profound. The show has a very strong beating social heart. You got to get it right. It has to be about something. It can’t just be an exploitation about something. So figuring out the writing and how to do that, and then the casting of it always takes forever. It took me a year to cast Versace. It took me a year and a half to cast this. It’s just very time-consuming. It takes a lot of time and we spend a lot of time doing it. I like doing a show where it’s like, ‘Okay, well, we’ll do it when it’s ready.’ That’s our sort of how we look at it.”
“We’ll do it when it’s ready” is the right approach, especially in regards to a show about a real-life event that contained a lot of misinformation and political bias. Take your time, Mr. Murphy. Take your time and do it right. And if that means America gets a few more months before diving back into the Clinton scandal, so be it. It gives us time to mentally prepare ourselves. Plus it won’t affect the presidential election this way. Win-win!
I am quite interested to see Impeachment whenever it really does come around. I was very young when the Clinton scandal broke and I missed a lot of details because my parents and school shielded me from the graphic intricacies. Don’t get me wrong, I am not looking to learn more about Clinton’s sex drive or Lewinsky’s dress or anything like that. But I am eager to learn more about the political aspect of the scandal and the inner-workings of a White House in total crisis. While Murphy loves to focus on the more scandalous side of things, I have faith that he will also nail the other, more subtle aspects of the story. It is about so much more than just a cigar.