‘Accused’ EP on Why the Fox Anthology May ‘Leave You in Tears’

“Zero hour is almost here, and I will take the respect I deserve.” Imagine being the father reading that in his teen’s journal. Michael Chiklis opens the anthology series Accused, as neurosurgeon Scott Corbett.

His elder son is kind and accomplished, his younger son, antisocial and angry. Though Scott’s specialty is the human brain, the doc hasn’t been able to fix his son’s, and faced with those violent words, he makes an unspeakably difficult decision. “The least bad choice,” says exec producer Howard Gordon (24).

(Credit: Shane Mahood/FOX)

Adapted from an acclaimed British series, Accused puts ordinary people on trial for taking wrong turns in challenging circumstances. Each hour begins in a courtroom with a new defendant. Via flashbacks, “piece by piece, you’ll fill in the puzzle of what happened,” says Gordon.

“Some of the episodes are tough, some leave you in tears, and others have quite a happy ending,” he notes.

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Among the protagonists: a deaf surrogate mother who loves her community, a teacher who moonlights as a drag queen, a Black business owner whose daughter is assaulted, and a female comedian who is raped. Margo Martindale, Molly Parker, Wendell Pierce, Rachel Bilson, and Malcolm-Jamal Warner are a few of the A-listers playing the innocent, the guilty and the somewhere-in-between. 

Accused, Series Premiere, Sunday, January 22, 9/8c, Fox