Boston Legal - 10/18/05
10-18-05, 08:02 AM
#1
DVD Talk Hero
Thread Starter
Boston Legal - 10/18/05
"A Whiff and a Prayer"
Cast: James Spader, Julie Bowen, Mark Valley, Rene Auberjonois, Justin Mentell, Ryan Michelle Bathe, Candice Bergen, William Shatner, Betty White, Kurt Fuller, H Richard Greene, Lisa Kaminir, John Thaddeus, Ryan Cutrona, Lou Beatty Jr, William Russ, Michael Bryan French, Bob Rumnock.
Director(s): Bill D'Elia.
Producer(s): David E. Kelley, Bill D'Elia.
Writer(s): David E. Kelley.
Original Airdate: October 18, 2005.
Crane, Poole & Schmidt
Spoiler:
Cast: James Spader, Julie Bowen, Mark Valley, Rene Auberjonois, Justin Mentell, Ryan Michelle Bathe, Candice Bergen, William Shatner, Betty White, Kurt Fuller, H Richard Greene, Lisa Kaminir, John Thaddeus, Ryan Cutrona, Lou Beatty Jr, William Russ, Michael Bryan French, Bob Rumnock.
Director(s): Bill D'Elia.
Producer(s): David E. Kelley, Bill D'Elia.
Writer(s): David E. Kelley.
Original Airdate: October 18, 2005.
Crane, Poole & Schmidt
10-18-05, 09:57 PM
#2
DVD Talk Legend
"Law & Order isn't just something on T.V. 4 nights a week."
"The right to bear arms, it's the second commandment."
"Denny, it's the second amendment."
"Same difference."
I really like this show, but they always seem to have one annoying storyline going every ep. The little man, the reverend, etc... Still,
to this ep.
"The right to bear arms, it's the second commandment."
"Denny, it's the second amendment."
"Same difference."
I really like this show, but they always seem to have one annoying storyline going every ep. The little man, the reverend, etc... Still,
to this ep.
10-18-05, 10:45 PM
#4
DVD Talk Hero
The last 10 minutes pretty much made the rest of the episode tolerable.
That reverand is just campy creepy. Still hate the junior lawyers subplot, just lame.
Obviously, this is the first of the "new" episode filmed this season (with Julie Bowen and her brood fully integrated into the show).
That reverand is just campy creepy. Still hate the junior lawyers subplot, just lame.
Obviously, this is the first of the "new" episode filmed this season (with Julie Bowen and her brood fully integrated into the show).
Last edited by Patman; 10-19-05 at 06:54 AM.
10-18-05, 11:14 PM
#6
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Originally Posted by Patman
Still have the junior lawyers subplot, just lame.
10-20-05, 02:07 AM
#7
DVD Talk God
Boston Legal 10/18/05
A Whiff and a Prayer -
Spoiler:
First crap episode for me. The beauty of Denny Crane is that he pulls it out when he needs to, but they turned him to crap here. And is it so much to ask that someone on the defense team (including Denny) actually bring up the fact that AK-47s were illegal for the public to own long before the Assault Weapon Ban? Doesn't that just help prove the point that it was "feel good" legislation like was mentioned??? I don't even care what the outcome of that suit is, but damn it seems like they should know just a little bit about it.
Didn't see a thread on this, and I am not surprised. Truly a crap episode.
10-20-05, 06:08 AM
#9
DVD Talk Legend
Originally Posted by invisiblegt
"But, since you did so well... Denny Crane."
"Ooh, a quickie."
"Ooh, a quickie."
EW did not give a very kind write-up in this week's issue. They gave it a C. While I agree with the political tangents portion of the argument, I think they seem to forget it's one of the funniest shows on TV.
Edit: Here it is...
Is David E. Kelley listening to anyone but himself these days? The question occurred to me while watching last month's Emmys, when both James Spader and William Shatner, accepting awards for their roles as Extreme Lawyers on Kelley's Boston Legal, noted the inaccessibility of the show's creator-writer. And it popped up again as this slick but tone-deaf series' new season began.
Kelley cut his teeth on L.A. Law, a show that pioneered the combo of issue-driven fist-thumping and winky sexual high jinks that dominated late-'80s TV drama. He went on to create several series, but sometime during Ally McBeal he succumbed to affection for a single character type: the borderline boob/lunatic whose appalling behavior is redeemed by ultra-competence in the clutch. On Boston Legal, the just-short-of-institutionalization ticciness of Spader's Alan Shore and Shatner's Denny Crane marks them as heirs to Fyvush Finkel (on both Picket Fences and Boston Public) as well as Ally McBeal's Peter MacNicol and Greg Germann: They're men (always men) advancing the principle that it's okay to be a creep, a lech, or a loon as long as you get the job done, preferably in a last-ditch blowhard courtroom summation.
The tonal whiplash between above- and below-the-belt obsessions can be downright disorienting. We're asked to mist up for 11 or 12 minutes at the rectitude of plotlines about Sudanese genocide or the lack of a U.S. assault-weapons ban, then turn our attention to a client who asks to sniff a lawyer's panties, or Crane and Shore on a camping trip waking up in each other's arms and panicking (nope, still not funny). It's like being trapped in a room with a clown who makes you sit on a whoopee cushion, then lectures you.
A short argument for the defense: Spader has to be the most mesmerizingly peculiar actor to find himself ensnared in a TV series this side of Vincent D'Onofrio (and this side of D'Onofrio is the right one to be on). His Xanaxed, fey monotone suggests he's got his own mysterious bead on his character, even if nobody else does. Although I'm lukewarm on Shatner's brand of puffy self-amusement, this is clearly his Leslie Nielsen-post-Airplane! moment, and he's working it well, even when Kelley milks the same nonjoke — Shatner's Crane gets off on hearing his own name — every week. And as senior partner Shirley Schmidt, Candice Bergen elevates whatever she touches; given what she has to elevate, that's some very graceful heavy lifting.
In supporting roles, Ed's Julie Bowen and two demographically calculated hotties (Ryan Michelle Bathe and Justin Mentell) have been brought in to replace last season's not-quite-as-demographically-calculated hotties. Good luck to them, because they all deserve better than fart and boner jokes. For all its ''outrageousness,'' Boston Legal is awfully old-fashioned; any given hour of sexual transgression on its time-slot rival Nip/Tuck makes this series look like a heaving, winded burlesque show, leering but prim. For a show about lawyers who don't go by the book, Boston Legal adheres to it fatally. It's a book Kelley should reopen, if only to discover that the rules he once helped write were long ago overturned on appeal. Grade: C
Kelley cut his teeth on L.A. Law, a show that pioneered the combo of issue-driven fist-thumping and winky sexual high jinks that dominated late-'80s TV drama. He went on to create several series, but sometime during Ally McBeal he succumbed to affection for a single character type: the borderline boob/lunatic whose appalling behavior is redeemed by ultra-competence in the clutch. On Boston Legal, the just-short-of-institutionalization ticciness of Spader's Alan Shore and Shatner's Denny Crane marks them as heirs to Fyvush Finkel (on both Picket Fences and Boston Public) as well as Ally McBeal's Peter MacNicol and Greg Germann: They're men (always men) advancing the principle that it's okay to be a creep, a lech, or a loon as long as you get the job done, preferably in a last-ditch blowhard courtroom summation.
The tonal whiplash between above- and below-the-belt obsessions can be downright disorienting. We're asked to mist up for 11 or 12 minutes at the rectitude of plotlines about Sudanese genocide or the lack of a U.S. assault-weapons ban, then turn our attention to a client who asks to sniff a lawyer's panties, or Crane and Shore on a camping trip waking up in each other's arms and panicking (nope, still not funny). It's like being trapped in a room with a clown who makes you sit on a whoopee cushion, then lectures you.
A short argument for the defense: Spader has to be the most mesmerizingly peculiar actor to find himself ensnared in a TV series this side of Vincent D'Onofrio (and this side of D'Onofrio is the right one to be on). His Xanaxed, fey monotone suggests he's got his own mysterious bead on his character, even if nobody else does. Although I'm lukewarm on Shatner's brand of puffy self-amusement, this is clearly his Leslie Nielsen-post-Airplane! moment, and he's working it well, even when Kelley milks the same nonjoke — Shatner's Crane gets off on hearing his own name — every week. And as senior partner Shirley Schmidt, Candice Bergen elevates whatever she touches; given what she has to elevate, that's some very graceful heavy lifting.
In supporting roles, Ed's Julie Bowen and two demographically calculated hotties (Ryan Michelle Bathe and Justin Mentell) have been brought in to replace last season's not-quite-as-demographically-calculated hotties. Good luck to them, because they all deserve better than fart and boner jokes. For all its ''outrageousness,'' Boston Legal is awfully old-fashioned; any given hour of sexual transgression on its time-slot rival Nip/Tuck makes this series look like a heaving, winded burlesque show, leering but prim. For a show about lawyers who don't go by the book, Boston Legal adheres to it fatally. It's a book Kelley should reopen, if only to discover that the rules he once helped write were long ago overturned on appeal. Grade: C
Last edited by Chew; 10-20-05 at 07:06 AM.
10-20-05, 07:17 AM
#10
DVD Talk Hero
Thread Starter
They need to bring Kerry Washington back, the replacement player just isn't cutting it.
Julie Bowen doesn't fit in w/ the rest of the cast.
This show continues to waste the talent of Mark Valley.
And I get a kick out of hearing Shirley say, "Denny Crane", too.
Julie Bowen doesn't fit in w/ the rest of the cast.
This show continues to waste the talent of Mark Valley.
And I get a kick out of hearing Shirley say, "Denny Crane", too.
