Boston Legal

[JB2005]

Picked this up on DVD about a year ago, anyone else a fan?

I find it a bit preachy sometimes, but I have a hard time disagreeing with what's being said! I also think this is possibly Shatner's greatest starring role, a show where the more he hams it up and the bigger the bite marks in the scenery get, somehow the better it gets...

Spoiler: Ending

It also is touching, the way he plays Denny Crane in Season 5 with his Alzheimers starting to take hold, is a lot more powerful and upsetting than I thought it would be! I found myself really feeling for him, seeing himself slipping slowly and Alan watching his best friend and ultimately husband, deteriorate before his eyes!

Any other fans out there?

 

[Destructor]

I started to watch this- you'd think it'd be right up my alley as I love:

David E. Kelley dramas
Shatner
Spader
Auberjonois.

However after about 5 episodes I found I wasn't really compelled by it. Spader's character is really unrelatable, I don't care about him in the slightest, which made the show a difficult watch for me. I may go back but I've completely forgotten about it which is not a good sign.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

It's a fun but flawed show. It was strongest when it focused on the characters and their interactions. Weakest when it delved into dumbass strawman politics.

 

[Caliburn24]

Yeah I have all the seasons on DVD, enjoyed them all.

The Denny/Alan relationship was the heart of the show, which combined with some sharp writing, and a sense of humor allowed the show to be better than most any other lawyer show I can think of.

The odd tonal changes, sometimes ridiculousness, ever changing secondary cast, and liberal soapbox that Kelley forced into various cases kept the show from being perfect however.

 

[Biffette]

I watched the whole thing in a marathon run recently and my reaction was mixed, to put it best. The high amount of strong female roles is very good, but the horrible treatment of women by the protagonists is troubling. I have trouble with dramadies because of this sort of juxtaposition and I always feel like the show is making a poor attempt to control my reactions. For example, I'm supposed to feel sorry for Denny Crane's decline into alzheimer's but I'm supposed to find his obsession with carrying firearms humorous. Would it be inappropriate if I found the alzheimer's funny and the fact that he carries around both real guns and paint guns bothersome? Why is the show implicitly placing judgement values on these issues? Eh, that's why I tend to stay away from dramadies in general and David E. Kelley stuff in particular.

Otherwise, it was a well-made, well-written, and well-acted show. I was pleased to feel a connection with some of the minor recurring characters and there were some very funny jokes and sequences. But jeez, those court-room monologues sure make the show feel dated. They should have kept the preaching generic, like in TNG, instead of repetitive specifics.

 

[Shatinator]

I watched the whole thing in a marathon run recently and my reaction was mixed, to put it best. The high amount of strong female roles is very good, but the horrible treatment of women by the protagonists is troubling. I have trouble with dramadies because of this sort of juxtaposition and I always feel like the show is making a poor attempt to control my reactions. For example, I'm supposed to feel sorry for Denny Crane's decline into alzheimer's but I'm supposed to find his obsession with carrying firearms humorous. Would it be inappropriate if I found the alzheimer's funny and the fact that he carries around both real guns and paint guns bothersome? Why is the show implicitly placing judgement values on these issues? Eh, that's why I tend to stay away from dramadies in general and David E. Kelley stuff in particular.

Otherwise, it was a well-made, well-written, and well-acted show. I was pleased to feel a connection with some of the minor recurring characters and there were some very funny jokes and sequences. But jeez, those court-room monologues sure make the show feel dated. They should have kept the preaching generic, like in TNG, instead of repetitive specifics.

Well I loved BL from it's beginnings on the much more sobering The Practice. But though I favored many of the issues (not all) that was presented. However as an answer to some of your concerns, one thing really to remember more than anything else is this show is satire. Enjoy it for what it is.

 

[Alrik]

Watched BL in first run from start to finish. For the most part I very much enjoyed it, however I do agree with the statement upthread about Kelley sometime swinging a little too far to the left at times. As far as Shatner...pure gold.

 

[JB2005]

Rewatch of TOS becomes a lot funnier when all the Kirk Summations are ended with "Denny Crane"

 

[Harvey]

I have the entire show on DVD, and would get it on Blu-Ray if it was available. I think it's simply brilliant. The only weak spot (relatively) was season three, but Kelly, D'Elia, and the rest seemed to realize what went wrong and right themselves in the final two years.

A shame we didn't get a spin-off of some sort, despite it being suggested. I had real fun with those characters.

 

[Jax]

My favourite show of all time, its either making you cry with laughter or tear up a little with some wonderfully acted & written serious moments, Alan's end speeches are legendary.

 

[Trekker4747]

Boston Legal was a great show though even now as I watch it on DVD some of its more political/anti-Bush/anti-war/Katrina stuff seems dated in this post-Bush era. Still, when the show gets on a topic it does it pretty good especially when it culminates to a soap-box closing argument from Alan Shore. The show also does a very good job in the court room scenes and has a nice revolving-door of attractive female attorneys.

William Shatner was also brilliant and deserved the Emmy(ies) he won/got nominated for during it. I do think the show slid too much into the camp/comedy stuff during the last couple of seasons (the final season most lacking in good court room scenes) and even went too far in the "breaking of the fourth wall." With Denny's slide into senility it made "some" sense he'd choose to break the wall and act as if he's in a TV show, but as the series wore on everyone more-or-less did it including Carl Sack in the penultimate episode in probably the most obvious instance of it.

The show also had a large number of Trek actors in it, William Shatner (Kirk), Rene Aubjunois(sp?) (Odo, DS9), Ethan Phillips (Neelix, VOY), Armin Shimerman (Quark, DS9), Scott Bakula (Archer, ENT.), Jeri Ryan (Seven, VOY), Michelle Phorbes (Ro, TNG.) And I'm sure there were some others too.

Anyway, it's a good show and I really enjoyed it.

 

[JarodRussell]

I lost interest when they started to focus way too much on Jerry and Clarence. And then Odo, Mark Valley and Julie Bowen went, too, and then it got pretty lame.

 

[bigdaddy]

I have the entire show on DVD, and would get it on Blu-Ray if it was available. I think it's simply brilliant. The only weak spot (relatively) was season three, but Kelly, D'Elia, and the rest seemed to realize what went wrong and right themselves in the final two years.

A shame we didn't get a spin-off of some sort, despite it being suggested. I had real fun with those characters.

I find that funny because I really enjoyed the characters in season 3 and found season 4 and five to be pretty "ehh" besides the big three characters.

 

[Trekker4747]

I lost interest when they started to focus way too much on Jerry and Clarence. And then Odo, Mark Valley and Julie Bowen went, too, and then it got pretty lame.

I'm sort of annoyed of the Jeffery Coho and that frigid woman who came in during the third (?) season and they got the multiple episode long "focus trial" rather than one of the main characters. Really? And, yeah, I think the show lost something when Brad and Denise left the show. I think they made Clarence far too eccentric a character to really sympathize with, especially when it came to his Clarice drag persona, Jerry I liked okay but sort of thought he came running in too often with a legal problem he had and needed Alan to help out with. I'd think the bar would find that interesting, even though he was never convicted of anything but in the space of a couple of years he was on trial for: attempted murder, assaulting a police officer, solicitation of a prostitute, perjury as jury member on a capital-murder trial, and violation of civil liberties in the workplace. Now, again, sure Alan got him off on all of those but all through jury nullification, summary judgment by the jurist, or in one case working out a deal with the DA; but I still think the bar would raise an eyebrow or two over everything Jerry was accused of doing over the course of just a couple of years.

Of course, the same Massachusetts bar was okay with Denny Crane occasionally accidentally discharging a fire-arm (in one case while in court), wagering on cases, and his pretty public lapses into senility, (not to mention his own solicitation cases), Alan's many occasions of using shady methods to win for his client, and Brad Chase's antics in rescuing the kidnapped boy. So, I'm guessing MA's bar board is about is lenient as New Jersey's medical boards when it comes to Greg House.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I'm sort of annoyed of the Jeffery Coho and that frigid woman who came in during the third (?) season and they got the multiple episode long "focus trial" rather than one of the main characters. Really?

The third season was a mixed bag, pretty much for that reason. Jeffrey Coho was a great character -- he actually reminded me of Alan Shore when he was introduced on The Practice, and I thought his case was the kind of gripping legal drama I missed from The Practice -- but he and his associate (Claire, I think) also unbalanced the show. I suspect that Kelly and D'Elia were trying to work out if a Spader/Shatner-less Practice would work, and they decided that it didn't so the characters were cut loose.

 

[Harvey]

I have the entire show on DVD, and would get it on Blu-Ray if it was available. I think it's simply brilliant. The only weak spot (relatively) was season three, but Kelly, D'Elia, and the rest seemed to realize what went wrong and right themselves in the final two years.

A shame we didn't get a spin-off of some sort, despite it being suggested. I had real fun with those characters.

I find that funny because I really enjoyed the characters in season 3 and found season 4 and five to be pretty "ehh" besides the big three characters.

I'll grant that season five was a little more refined than the fourth season; at that point Kelly and the others fully realized that they were writing a screwball comedy. As a result, the main cast was made up entirely of romantic pairs (yes, including Alan & Denny) and anyone beyond that dynamic was jettisoned.

 

[Biffette]

If there had been a fifth season would Melvin have become a regular? I say yes.

 

[Trekker4747]

Melvin as a regular would have been awesome, Alan's head would have exploded! An episode with the two of them co-counseling,. That would have been a hoot, that's what it would have been.

 

[Trekker4747]

You know, really, ABC should have been brought up on murder charges for canceling this show because as wore on it gained more and more self-awareness and probably could've been construed as being sapient by the end.

 

[Jax]

If there had been a fifth season would Melvin have become a regular? I say yes.

There were 5 seasons.