Monday, December 08, 2008
Boston Legal
I am gonna miss Boston Legal. (I missed the first hour of the series finale, forgot it was two hours.) The show wrapped in the most astounding celebration of love & friendship, surreal if you can imagine Justice Scalia performing a double wedding, including a same sex, on the dock of an exclusive fishing lodge obviously located on a Hollywood sound stage.
Boston Legal was one of my favorite all-timeTV series. Producer David E. Kelley shuffled a supporting cast in & out, kept a stable of entertaining judges, including Henry Gibson, & ran notable guest stars through multi-show plot arcs. Candice Bergen arrived & settled in (who figured she would fit so well?), followed by John Larroquette. The cast was pared down for the short final season. But all through the run it was anchored by the enduring, intimate, complex friendship of Alan Shore & Denny Crane; James Spader & William Shatner. The best role Shatner ever played, by drawing upon every role he ever played including William Shatner.
If a cross-dressing black lawyer & a high priced whore lawyer weren't odd enough, one of most extraordinary characters ever to appear regularly on a TV show slipped into the cast from a recurring role: Jerry Espenson, a brilliant legal mind but a social misfit afflicted with Asperger's Syndrome. Christian Clemenson took a character with extremely peculiar ticks & small promise as a starring series regular & evolved him into a deeply sympathetic & admirable whole human being, Clemenson was able to turn Jerry on a dime from drama to slapstick to pathos & back to drama again. His use of a fake cigarette to bring out a tough guy alter ego was brilliant, as a running joke & an insight into his character's shyness & vulnerability. Even he finds love through friendship.
No TV "drama' depicted more people over the age of fifty with more affection, or took on current events & issues so bluntly yet with humor (& often a fair presentation of the opposing side's views). Boston Legal endorsed Barack Obama for President. Even arch-conservative Denny Crane said he was voting Obama. That's different than "don't you wish he was real" fictional Democratic President Josiah Bartlet in The West Wing. Of course, that show endorsed its own main character.
I'll miss Crane, Poole & Schmidt.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
Boston Legal was one of my favorite all-timeTV series. Producer David E. Kelley shuffled a supporting cast in & out, kept a stable of entertaining judges, including Henry Gibson, & ran notable guest stars through multi-show plot arcs. Candice Bergen arrived & settled in (who figured she would fit so well?), followed by John Larroquette. The cast was pared down for the short final season. But all through the run it was anchored by the enduring, intimate, complex friendship of Alan Shore & Denny Crane; James Spader & William Shatner. The best role Shatner ever played, by drawing upon every role he ever played including William Shatner.
If a cross-dressing black lawyer & a high priced whore lawyer weren't odd enough, one of most extraordinary characters ever to appear regularly on a TV show slipped into the cast from a recurring role: Jerry Espenson, a brilliant legal mind but a social misfit afflicted with Asperger's Syndrome. Christian Clemenson took a character with extremely peculiar ticks & small promise as a starring series regular & evolved him into a deeply sympathetic & admirable whole human being, Clemenson was able to turn Jerry on a dime from drama to slapstick to pathos & back to drama again. His use of a fake cigarette to bring out a tough guy alter ego was brilliant, as a running joke & an insight into his character's shyness & vulnerability. Even he finds love through friendship.
No TV "drama' depicted more people over the age of fifty with more affection, or took on current events & issues so bluntly yet with humor (& often a fair presentation of the opposing side's views). Boston Legal endorsed Barack Obama for President. Even arch-conservative Denny Crane said he was voting Obama. That's different than "don't you wish he was real" fictional Democratic President Josiah Bartlet in The West Wing. Of course, that show endorsed its own main character.
I'll miss Crane, Poole & Schmidt.
Labels: TV
