A bi-weekly roundup of legal television
Midterm Grades (according to the Osgoode Bell Curve):
Law and Order: SVU – C+
How To Get Away With Murder – B
The Grinder – B
The Good Wife – A
Welcome to TV L Rev. A bi-weekly look at legal television. This edition looks at how the shows have been done with nearly a full semester under their belt. Overall, it’s been a fairly mediocre crop.
Minor spoilers for How to Get Away with Murder, The Good Wife, Law and Order: SVU, and The Grinder below.
Law and Order: SVU – C+
Rounding out the bottom of the curve is L&O:SVU. Don’t get me wrong, SVU had some decent turns this season with good guest actors (Whoopi Goldberg, the return of BD Huang) but some episodes were melodramatic and unsatisfying, with the transgender and police shooting episodes being especially guilty. While SVU was never the legal heavyweight of the L&O franchise, opting to focus more on the police characters, Benson never looked comfortable in the Lieutenant role and Rollins on-going pregnancy storyline was a distraction from the what the show should be: a by-the-books formulaic police procedural. SVU never aspired for greatness, but it’s barely hitting mediocrity on a good night.
How To Get Away With Murder – B
HTGAWM probably benefits from the curve. HTGAWM is entertaining in its twist and turns, but it gets old after the first few episodes. This is the one show that I literally have to slog through every week.
It’s a strangely constructed show: as the audience, we know who killed Rebecca. However, we have to watch the students dummy their way through their investigation and be completely wrong at every turn. We are left completely in the dark about the Hapsdal murder and are in the same position as the show’s characters. There’s absolutely no sense of legal realism (do NOT, I repeat do NOT, try to replicate Annalise’s courtroom behaviour, you’ll be laughed out of the practice).
But all complaints aside, the show is cheaply compelling. The show keeps you watching so you can discover what completely outlandish, immoral, double-crossing twist comes next. HTGAWM gets away with being mostly a terrible show 90% of the time, but deliciously entertaining for the remaining 10%.
The Grinder – B
The Grinder started with a lot of potential as a legal comedy show, but has become essentially a sibling-rivalry family sitcom. Instead of the jokes revolving around the legal disputes, the comedy is about the personal relationship between the real lawyer Stewart and the TV lawyer Dean. Don’t get me wrong, the show is still funny, and has good energy all-a-around (special shout-out to the young actor playing Ethan). But instead of owning the premise, it’s played as more of a gimmick in a more conventional odd-family situation sitcom. Anyway, fans of the Grinder should rejoice as it appears to be doing decent rating-wise and likely to get a second season.
The Good Wife – A
This is another show that benefits from curve-inflation. TGW has essentially hit the reset button, creating a new status quo for the show and largely ignoring the show-mythology. Alicia and new friend Lucca have started a new firm that is dealing with out-of-luck clients who are also short on funds. The old firm of Lockhart-Agos-Lee have largely been kept isolated to their own wacky and inconsequential storyline. But so far the best subplot has been Eli’s revenge plot against Peter and new Chief-of-Staff Ruth.
It’s competent but not high-achieving television. There are echoes of past greatness: epic dialogue-scenes, wacky opposing counsel and jurists, and Columbo-esque legal turnabouts. TGW has become stale in its old-age, but has flashes of former glory. Still hitting well-above any other legal show currently airing, but it feels like it’s on a farewell tour.
Best Legal Moment:
Has to go the Grinder episode 2, where Dean, the TV lawyer, objects multiple times that a statement is “hearsay”, only to be chastised for not being anywhere close. An experience familiar to many law students.