Funny how John was in this and Boston Legal. The two comedic legal shows. Shame we won’t get a crossover with them.
A rather subdued scene by Night Court standards. The only big laugh moment was Dan's yelp at the end. I hope this is just one of the more serious bits, and that they don't shy away from the original's broad farce and zaniness. I mean, when Dan said Harry was a great guy and Abby replied, she shouldn't have just said "He felt the same about you." It should've been a setup for a joke about how she couldn't honestly respond in kind, because for most of his time with Harry, Dan was an utterly awful guy, a guy that Harry couldn't find a good word to say about even at his supposed funeral. Either she should've dithered and struggled for something nice to say, or Dan should've rejected her platitude and said something scathing and acerbic about the jerk he used to be. To play that exchange straight and do nothing with it was a huge missed opportunity.
See, now that's the kind of writing the new scene lacked. Even when Dan is trying to be nice, he does it in a way that's characteristically rude and edgy, and in a way that's funny and wittily written. There's a complex dynamic to the scene, where he starts out being really mean, then you gradually realize he's trying to help Harry in his own way, and finally the scene earns the moment where Dan drops his armor and admits his real feelings -- and that dramatic moment is punctuated by the scene's best punch line. The new scene had none of that well-crafted writing or character nuance. Granted, it's not a fair comparison, since this clip was a climactic scene between two characters who have a lot of history, while the new scene was a first meeting that's probably early in the episode. But the old clip shows how the original show packed in so much humor and clever writing even in its serious moments, and the new clip doesn't have that. I hope it's not typical of the show, but if it isn't, then they really chose a weak clip to promote it with.
I took the scene as more just a tribute to Harry, in the regular show we may see something more on par with what to expect. But the show is going to be different no matter what the tone/look of shows today are much different. It's also been 30 years, Dan has clearly "grown up."