‘Eyewitness’: A Crime Drama That Focuses On the Person Who Saw the Crime

USA’s newest crime series, Eyewitness, joins an increasingly crowded field of anthology tales this fall (American Horror Story, Secrets and Lies), but executive producer Adi Hasak (Shades of Blue) is confident this one will stand out. “We’re trying to rewrite the genre,” Hasak says.

Adapted from the Norwegian series Øyevitne, the show will center on—per the title—the eyewitness to a crime. Season 1 follows a pair of teen boys (Tyler Young and James Paxton) harboring a secret preventing them from notifying police (including Julianne Nicholson) after observing a bloody shoot-out in an isolated cabin in upstate New York.

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“We have this obsession with the voyeurism of a protagonist who witnesses a crime” Hasak says, comparing the premise to the Alfred Hitchcock classic Rear Window. But the team is more interested in layered characters than standard whodunit elements. “The audience knows something nobody else does, which is who the killer is,” he says. “It becomes a much more riveting psychological character study.”

Eyewitness, Series premiere, Sunday, October 16, 10/9c, USA.