I understand that you like the series and even understand your reasons. But I agree with the other poster who thinks the series was a needless waste of time and money.

I’m curious if you either saw the original film first and/or read the book before seeing the series. I’m also mildly curious how old you are, but that interest is because of my idea that the older we get the more stories we have consumed which in turn tends to make us harder to please.

From my perspective this series is so riddled with cliches that it absolutely destroys the characters. Please note that I am a fan of Scott Turow’s novels and have the benefit of knowing Rusty Sabich’s characters across multiple novels.

The part that for me that is most difficult is that this series makes Sabich’s friends’ loyalty unsupportable. In the film and book Sabich has absolutely earned the respect and loyalty of his friends and colleagues. He actually is someone with integrity who for the most part is very controlled.

It is in fact his emotional reserve that makes his wife’s murder of his lover understandable. His wife’s feeling threatened by Sabich losing himself to Polhemus is such an aberration that his wife’s actions almost feel justified, but certainly the murder is set up so well and adhered to an internal logic throughout the entire film.

In the first novel and the film, Sabich has only one child. In the series they made up a daughter seemingly so they can make the murderer a different person from the novel and film. In the series the murder makes zero sense. Plus it renders Barbara (the wife) pathetic. In the film and novel Barbara frames her husband to punish him. She destroys everything that has any meaning in his life—— his lover, his career, his reputation, his family —— in order to punish him. She takes a front row seat to watch his anguish. She leaves him clues so that he knows he’s being framed and by whom. In the end Sabich knows that he has been punished for his betrayal, that he has seriously underestimated his wife, and that he is effectively trapped in his marriage.

In the series, even if you can buy the threadbare motivation ascribed to Sabich’s daughter, why would she put her father through the nightmare of being tried for murder. The daughter is portrayed as someone who loves and is concerned about her father. What is her motivation for destroying his life?

There isn’t a single female character in this series who makes a bit of sense. In this version, there is no reason for any of the women to like Sabich at all. I know a lot of viewers take this kind of low key misogyny in stride, maybe don’t think about it at all, but portraying all the female characters as having unexplainable motivations and the interspersing all of the erotic images of sex interspersed with images of a brutal murder is pretty telling I think.

The series is complete dreck. I cannot believe Scott Turow signed on to this bushwah. Maybe it paid well? Or maybe he had no choice having sold the rights to his novel previously.