reviewed by Charity Bishop
     

I got sucked into this show thanks to a two minute clip from a later season that has been circulating around the internet. In it, a young man arrogantly attempts to rob Denny Crane and gets a monologue on the inappropriateness of his intentions ... then he is shot in the foot. I laughed. I rewound the clip. I watched it again. Then I rented the first season of Boston Legal.

Everyone is a little bit concerned about Denny Crane (William Shatner). Once the most powerful and prestigious lawyer on the east coast (he would argue in the entire world), he is now regulated to occasional "guest appearances" in court and frequent bouts of memory loss. If he can remember the name of the girl who brings him his coffee, he's doing good. But he is the first name on the letterhead of the law firm of Crane, Poole & Schmidt and they cannot just force him into retirement, so instead his colleague Paul Lewiston (Rene Auberjonois) merely schemes to keep him out of the courtroom. Lewiston, however, soon has bigger problems to deal with when another of their senior partners has a complete mental breakdown and winds up institutionalized. The balance of his workload is shifted onto Alan Shore (James Spader), who has a less than sterling reputation. His interest is in winning cases, romancing the women he works with, and in "not representing evil people." But he is also not above bribery, coercion, manipulation, and the occasional "stretching of the truth" in order to win. Alan wrote the book on playing dirty and has no intention of losing his next case, since he bet the latest addition to the firm, Brad Chase (Mark Valley), that he would obliterate the opposition.

It matters because Brad is the ex-lover of Alan's current flame, Sally Heep (Lake Bell). However, it's a tough case to win: a civil lawsuit involving a mother's insistence that her daughter lost out on playing Little Orphan Annie due to her skin color. In the meantime, his moralistic blonde associate Lori Colson (Monica Potter) has been asked by a client to hire a private investigator to follow his wife, since he is convinced she is cheating on him. But there is a conflict of interest since his wife is also represented by the firm. Lori doesn't know what to do... and then discovers an even more dramatic issue: the woman is actually cheating on their biggest client with Denny Crane! If their client finds out, they could lose their biggest source of income and their reputation to boot.

Boston Legal has one thing going for it -- snappy writing. You never know what is coming and it's usually hilarious. The fact that they can contrive such a bunch of scummy characters and make the audience like them as much as they do is a testament both to the strength of the scripts and the actors throwing themselves into their roles. James Spader in particular does a magnificent turn as the biggest jerk you are ever likely to meet, an un-empathetic thirty-something attorney who womanizes shamelessly when he is not championing whatever cause is brought to him by flustered clients. There is not a shred of decency in him but somehow we don't care. The same goes for the rest of them and I don't mind admitting that the series gets a dynamic boost when the third senior partner shows up midway through the season. Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen) is a female powerhouse who can play "rough" with the big boys who never fails to put them in their place while looking fabulous doing it. She is fabulous. It was a bit of a shock for me to see William Shatner in such a part but his character is a little bit nuts and you cannot help being fond of him in spite of his inflated ego and determination to be a playboy in spite of his "advanced" age.

It's a shame, therefore, that amid the snappy dialogue and hilarious antics is an obscene amount of sexual references, implications, innuendos, and conversation. Half of what comes out of every man's mouth is innuendo or a proposition or some other indecent reference to female objectivity. The women either roll their eyes, ignore it, engage in it (that is Shirley's preferred method), or file sexual harassment claims. There are references to anatomical "size," orgasms, and being "turned on." Denny loves hearing the sound of his name so much that Shirley can get him excited just by whispering it in his ear -- and she does so frequently just to mess with his mind. Characters and clients engage in various inappropriate relationships. If someone in the firm is not sleeping with someone else, they have done so in the past or intend to do so in the future. Alan has bedded most of the women in the firm and is once shown rolling around in a hotel bed with Tara (Rhona Mitra). In another scene, he pops up unexpectedly from under her desk. I'll leave what he was doing down there to your imagination. The pilot features near rear nudity (a man walks into a business meeting without any pants or undershorts on; we see the bottom of his buttocks). "Loose Lips" involves a transvestite fired from his job as Santa at a local department store; there are some references to the fact that Brad is uncomfortable with alternative lifestyles (this also comes into play later in "It Girls & Beyond," when he defends a lesbian accused of ripping her ex-lover off). In "Death Not Be Proud," Shirley and Denny represent a woman accused of solicitation and being involved with male prostitutes; they argue that she is a kleptomaniac and a "sex fiend."

Profanity is infrequent but mild violence intrudes on several occasions; a gruesome murder scene is shown in black and white police photos. Denny shoots a man in the shoulder who intends to harm Alan. There are some references to Christianity -- a few of them are tolerant but others are mean-spirited. Lori attends church and believes in Creation. She and Shirley make a convincing argument in court for the right to teach Creation along with Evolution in a science class (then express their concern that the court might swing too far the other way and ban Evolution). Alan eventually obtains a new secretary (Betty White) who asks a murderer if he has found Jesus yet. She encourages him to attend church but in her typical way of confusing words, implies that because he is a murderer, he needs to be a Christian since they are usually the ones who kill people. Many of the characters express a belief in a higher power or the presence of God, but their behavior indicates otherwise. Politics does not heavily intrude and usually is represented fairly, but the series does tend to lean a bit left. One episode revolves around a lawsuit aimed at a school that has banned Fox News Channel but does not block the other stations (due to "far right" news reporting claims). Fox News gets fair representation but is accused of being biased at the same time (the other networks are painted as "leaning left"). The season finale deals with the death penalty and some might be offended at its representation of Texas's judicial system (Alan accuses them of being more about killing people than finding justice). Denny makes no secret of the fact that he is a Republican, and Alan is equally vocal about being a Democrat.

It's unfortunate that this successful spin-off from The Practice felt the need to stray from more intelligent dialog into relying on sexual humor because there are some magnificent and thought-provoking speeches present on a variety of modern issues. In that regard, the equally intelligent if somewhat less humorous Law & Order is a much better alternative.