Topicality of series worries its creator

TELEVISION /

For two years, “American Crime” — with its strong repeating cast and signature narrative intensity — explored timely and provocative issues (including racism, homophobia, culture and class warfare ) with a humane directness rarely seen on network television.

On Sunday, the anthology series began its third season, but its creator worries how viewers might react to a storyline centering on another heated controversy: illegal immigration.

The rising national uproar has given even John Ridley pause.

“As someone who tells stories, you want to feel there is a sense of urgency in what you’re saying,” Ridley said by phone this week “But it brings me no joy. I don’t feel, in being so close to reality, that we’re presenting it in a space where people are necessarily prepared for thoughtful conversation.”

He fears that the fevered pitch of the immigration debate, escalated by President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban and plan to build a wall along the U.S.Mexico border, has overwhelmed considerations of the personal ramifications and emotional cost for families and individuals.

“How we, as a society, can come together when talking about immigration and labor is not easy,” he said. “But you can address those problems without demonizing, without removing the human element. When the talk revolves around separating mothers and their children, when you remove the sanctity of family, when you say you want to be punitive, that is not problem-solving in a human way.”

The series will reprise its format of intersecting storylines and multiple characters featuring a formidable repertory company led by Felicity Huffman, Timothy Hutton, Lili Taylor and Regina King.