The one factor that ABC’s new jail redemption drama For Life has in widespread with Netflix’s Exonerated 5 miniseries When They See Us is that in each circumstances, the boys have been wrongly accused, imprisoned, after which ultimately had their prices reversed. Nonetheless, that is just about the place the similarities finish, in response to Isaac Wright Jr., the true man whose life impressed the brand new ABC sequence. Like the primary character, Wright grew to become a lawyer whereas serving time and labored to have his conviction overturned.
“Cash can not provide you with again the pricelessness of what you have misplaced, and the excellence between When They See Us and what occurred to me and what I went via, is that I grew to become the system in a approach that was triumphant,” Wright advised reporters on the Tv Critics Affiliation’s winter press tour in January. He’s additionally one of many present’s government producers together with Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Doug Robinson.
“I used to be a sufferer of the system and finally grew to become a greater a part of the system, and so When They See Us is just not that sort of story,” Wright continued. “And the individuality of what For Life is bringing to the viewers, that hope and that inspiration that we do not have to proceed to be victims of the system, that we may be part of the system in good and higher methods, goes to be a singular expertise for the viewers.”
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On the present, which premieres Feb. 11, Aaron Wallace (Nicholas Pinnock) is wrongfully accused of being a drug kingpin and given a life sentence that snatches away his freedom, spouse and baby. To show his innocence, Aaron turns into a lawyer whereas behind bars and never solely works to overturn his conviction, however that of different harmless prisoners. For Life additionally stars Joy Bryant, Indira Varma and Timothy Busfield.
“It is a serialized present with procedural components inside it,” Robinson mentioned. “You take a look at the case of the week within the pilot, it is actually a 3 or 4 beat authorized story. It isn’t plenty of difficult strikes, however what it’s is extremely emotional, and that’s what’s going to distinguish it from another ‘authorized procedural dramas.'”
“It is a quest. It is an odyssey, and he is actually Odysseus making an attempt to get again residence, and that is why it wanted to be a present and never a film,” Robinson added. “This can be a hundred chapter novel about this unimaginable character. There is a defiant component that’s working via the guts of the present that I feel is what persons are connecting to. It is an underdog story.”
For Life premieres Tuesday Feb. 11 at 10/9c on ABC.
(Disclosure: TV Information is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of ViacomCBS.)
