Over the years I’ve watched a bunch of lawyer shows, way back to The Defenders in the Sixties, with E. G. Marshall and Robert Reed, a very good show as I remember it. And after that, L. A. Law with Corbin Bernsen, Susan Dey, Jill Eikenberry, Jimmy Smits, and Blair Underwood. Another good show that put the law and lawyers in a good light. Not that all lawyers aren’t good and honest people, just that so many of them aren’t, acquiring the public image of sleaze balls who’d do about anything to earn a buck, ambulance chasers looking for liability claims.
The Non Sequiter is painfully funny, painful because it summarizes the opinion many people have of lawyers. The Practice tried to change that view., with Dylan McDermott, Lara Flynn Boyle , and Camryn Manheim heading a law firm that defended down-and-outers. Last season, TNT brought us Raising the Bar, with a cast of lawyers working for the prosecution and others as public defenders. Great acting from a group no one would recognize from previous appearances, great scripts, moving conflicts between the prosecutors and the defenders. And this season, Julianna Marguiles stars in The Good Wife, with Chris Noth as the bad philandering husband, an Illinois state’s attorney convicted of using state funds for his philandering with a hooker. This show is one of this season’s best, mainly for Marguiles’ role as the betrayed wife who goes back to her earlier career as a lawyer. Her investigator, played by Archie Panjabi, is a wonderful addition to the cast. She’s tough, cynical, and capable. The two of them unite in winning decisions for their clients, most of whom can’t afford a capable lawyer and would get lost in the legal system without the help of Marguiles and Panjabi. This is a show well worth watching.
No comments:
Post a Comment