Starting first in the mid-1980s as a massively successful legal novel by Scott Turow before being adapted in 1990 into one of Harrison Ford’s bigger non-Han Solo/Indiana Jones-related hit films, Presumed Innocent is now on the small screen. The legal thriller has received the limited-series treatment from Apple TV+ with a seeming murderer’s row of creative types heavily involved. J.J. Abrams serves as executive producer, David E. Kelley is the showrunner and frequent co-writer of the eight-episode series, which is toplined by Jake Gyllenhaal.

Almost all of the ingredients are in place for this Presumed Innocent to be both trashy and entertaining, the exact kind of summertime thrill-ride that once drew audiences into the multiplex. The cast is solid, the show looks polished, and it’s paced well — unfortunately, it’s never more than moderately compelling, thanks to some pressing storytelling issues the series either creates or never attempts to overcome.