‘Accused’: Abigail Breslin & Aisha Dee Cast in Fox Anthology Series

Abigail Breslin (L), Aisha Dee (R)
Courtesy of Fox

Abigail Breslin and Aisha Dee are joining the cast of Fox‘s Accused, a new anthology drama series. The show is based on a U.K. show of the same name. Breslin and Dee join previously announced stars Whitney Cummings and Michael Chiklis and directors Marlee Matlin and Billy Porter.

In their episode, Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine) and Dee (The Bold Type) will play Esme Brewer and Aaliyah Harris, a couple who take justice into their own hands after a white nationalist plows their car through a peaceful demonstration and gets away unscathed. With local police unable to find the driver, Esme and Aaliyah take matters into their own hands. Aaliyah catfishes her way through their search for the driver. Meanwhile, Breslin’s Esme is a waitress who left home when she was 15 to escape a toxic past.

Based on the BAFTA-winning BBC series, Accused opens in a courtroom, focussing on the accused, “with viewers knowing nothing about their crime or how they ended up on trial,” Fox describes. “Told from the defendant’s point of view through flashbacks, Accused holds a mirror up to the current times with evocative and emotional stories. In Accused, viewers discover how an ordinary person gets caught up in an extraordinary situation and ultimately crossing the line, revealing how one wrong turn leads to another, until it’s too late to turn back.”

In Cummings’ episode, she will play “an acerbic female stand-up comic who is forced to confront public opinion and courtroom biases after she reports being sexually assaulted.” Chiklis will star in the series premiere as brain surgeon Dr. Scott Corbett, a successful man with a seemingly perfect family. Scott faces the limits of unconditional love when he discovers his son may be planning a violent attack at his school.

Matlin will make her directorial debut on Accused, leading an episode about a deaf woman who becomes a surrogate and later commits a crime of advocacy and protection. Porter is set to direct an episode about “a fierce drag queen and a whirlwind affair that leads to devastating consequences.”

Accused is developed by Howard Gordon (24, Homeland) and executive produced by Gordon, Alex Gansa (24, Homeland), and David Shore (The Good Doctor, House). It’s co-produced by Sony Pictures Television and Fox Entertainment. Glenn Geller, Erin Gunn, All3Media America’s Jacob Cohen-Holmes, and Jimmy McGovern, Sita Williams, Roxy Spencer and Louise Pedersen for All3Media International also executive produce, along with Frank Siracusa and John Weber.

McGovern created the original series, which debuted in 2010 on BBC One.

Accused, Series Premiere, TBA, Fox