I’ve said it before - I’m not a big fan of television. It’s partly due to the abysmal quality of the programming, which sinks to lower depths each year. But part of it is much like an mistreated woman, who has a hard time trusting men and jumping headlong into a new relationship because of past affairs that were cloying at first and bitter at the end, and who is certain that is going to be the case with this charming young fellow she just met.
With each new failure, each new relationship leading nowhere, she ends up thinking they’re all alike.
It was then with merely a cautious excitement that I began watching the eight season of The Practice. I’ve seen the series before and (call me superficial, if you will) it always seemed too self-important, well balanced on top of its moral pedestal while juggling ethical issues, letting rapists go free because it was the righteous, law-abiding thing to do, and pitting its characters against harrowing moral choices in situations where they inevitably did the right thing.
Sure, it was well-written and the actors all did their part properly, but I felt like I was inviting into my house a friend that while smarter than average, acted more arrogant than his bit of extra intellect warranted. The type of person who feels they need to publicly prove that they’re just a bit smarter than the rest because they’re insecure of their own perspicacity, and in doing so alienate everyone but the most patient.
Why, then did I give it another shot? Because of James Spader.
He’s one of those actors that I’ve always considered under-appreciated, and while a few movies in the past ten years have managed to use his amazing talent for understated and subtle performances, he has been mostly relegated to doing dreck.
It was uplifting then to see him raise from the crud usually handed down to him and completely steal the TV series with his performance as Alan Shore, an amoral, lustful, sharp-tongued sinner that somehow managed to do the right thing more often than all the other bishops, a mirror raised to their characters that made them appear more righteous than right, more self-important than selfless. In this season, the writing dropped most of its conceitedness, born probably of viewers assuming it was an intelligent show, and focused on proving it actually was.
It was no surprise then when I got all excited to hear that after the series’ cancellation, the spin-off show was going to be created around Spader’s character.
What was a surprise is that I find myself much like the jaded woman leaving the honeymoon stage of the relationship, where she starts noticing on her new beau the patterns of previously disappointing lovers.
In this case, I’m afraid we’ve been cursed with cool. Alan Shore was cool and the others were not, right, so why not make a series around cool characters? Right? Cool senior partner played by William Shatner! Cool sexually liberated law firm! Cool offices! Right? Right?
It’s like people began paying attention to the first guy who wore a leather jacket on the show, and now everybody else is doing it.
I hope I’m mistaken. The writing on these last few episodes of the eight season, where we can see the old show die and the new one being born, prove that the creators know their business. Throughout this season, they seemed to realize that conflict was interesting, and not only when it came from the outside of the organization.
I can only hope that Boston Legal won’t become Matrix Reloaded, all about the cool looks with no soul.
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