TV Tuesday: Proven Innocent

Book By Book

One of the many new spring TV shows my husband and I are enjoying is Proven Innocent, a legal thriller focused on wrongful convictions.

Madeline Scott, played by Rachelle Lefevre, and her brother, Levi, played by Riley Smith, were convicted of the murder of their friend, Rosemary, when they were just teenagers. The pair spent ten years in prison and then were finally freed, when a lawyer named Easy Boudreau, played by Russell Hornsby, overturned their conviction. Madeline got her law degree and is now in practice with Easy, focused on wrongful convictions. The man who put Madeline and her brother in prison is Gore Bellows, played by Kelsey Grammer, and he is now a powerful District Attorney running for State Attorney General, so Madeline finds herself going head to head with him in many of her cases. He still believes she is guilty and has no respect for her innocence project, but she could definitely get in his way of climbing the political ladder, as the overturned convictions make headlines.

Each episode features a different case, with a prisoner or someone who believes in their innocence asking the team to take on the case. In that way, it plays like many legal thrillers, with mysteries, evidence, and a courtroom scene or two. There are also flashbacks and a secondary investigation, running throughout the season, as Madeline is determined to find out who really killed Rosemary all those years ago. Many of the cases feature details that you could find in today’s newspapers, making them current and relevant. Lefevre is convincing as the determined and single-minded Madeline, and Grammer makes a menacing evil politician, all the more frightening because he truly believes he is doing the right thing. We are nine episodes into season one, and so far, the team has won most of their cases and gotten wrongful convictions overturned, but we figure they can’t always be successful, and a recent episode did end in a devastating loss. We are enjoying the suspense and action, as well as the personal drama behind the scenes and the varying stories in each episode. It might be a little bit too optimistic in the team’s success rate, but it’s fun to root for the good guys!

Proven Innocent airs on Fox Fridays at 9 pm, and we have been watching it On Demand (we are 9 episodes into the 13-episode season). All of the episodes have aired now, and all are still available On Demand or on the Fox website, but I see that the last episode expires on May 17 (I hate when they do that), so you might have to binge this week, like we will! I believe it is also airing on Hulu or you can watch on Amazon for $1.99 an episode or $19.99 for the first season.

Have you seen Proven Innocent yet? Are you enjoying it?