I haven’t watched Boston Legal in a while, for one reason or another, but I loved the first couple of seasons. Yesterday I caught up with a recent episode, watching Season 4, Episode 9, No Brains Left Behind, in which Alan Shore sues the National Guard and Shirley Schmidt takes a college to court for expelling her granddaughter.
I couldn’t believe how relentlessly preachy the episode was, the war in Iraq, the education system. Sure, the program has always been left of center but this was akin to being backed into a corner by Michael Moore.
So, is this a false impression on my part? Did I just happen to catch a particularly political episode? Or has it really taken to lecturing its audience each week?
I don’t think it’s a false impression. I’ve been saying this for a while. But I took the “No Brains Left Behind” episode as the show making fun of itself and it’s preaching. The intro had Allen literally getting on a soap box. It thought it might be a sign that they are backing off the preaching but maybe not. I always thought that show was at it’s best when it didn’t take itself seriously. Even then it seemed like the writers felt a need to educate us from the liberal point of view. My problem that if they feel the need to educate the viewer on an issue then they should really have a solid debate of ideas.
Becoming? I haven’t watched it from the beginning but I always thought it was kind of preachy, but since I usually agree with the side they’re preaching I just shrug it off and there’s always the Alan and Denny scenes to keep me amused.
The show started becoming preachy when Candace Bergin joined the cast, and that was quite a while ago. But yeah, it’s been getting even more preachy of late.
I’ve never minded it too much because the writing was always good enough that the arguments were plausible and therefore interesting. Lately, not so much. A couple of episodes ago there was a courtroom scene in which Alan Shore basically went off on a rant against the Bush administration and Republicans in general, and won his case. That was very annoying.
I stopped watching Boston Legal a couple of years ago because I couldn’t stand the preachiness. Which is a shame, because it’s a really good show otherwise. I can’t imagine that it could have become more preachy. That is a real feat.
Yeah, it is a shame. It used to be a great show. I had to switch that episode off halfway through, I just found it too annoying. To paraphrase John Keats, I hate TV shows that have a palpable design upon me.
I love Boston Legal. The writing is superb, the cast is wonderful. But, my god, I am so freaking sick of how preachy it is. Any cause that could be twisted to make conservatives/Republicans look bad is fair game. The only Republican character on the show is Denny Crain, a laughingstock. The cases are always won, not on the legal merit involved (which I would love them to do once in a while) but because Allen Shore makes an impassioned speech about how screwed up the Bush administration is. IANAL but I’d lay good odds that 90% of the verdicts would have been overturned on appeal.
Meh, it’s preachy, but not in a self-important way. It’s a spin-off of The Practice which started the idea of using unusual tricks (Plan B: accuse the witness!) to get defendants off. It was continued by Boston Legal (Using “In the United States of America” to make the jury be on your side by evoking their patriotic sense of duty). They seem to use these sorts of ploys no matter who their client is. It’s preachy, BUT mostly as a tactic, and not only for a particular side of the political spectrum.
[fargo]I’m not sure I agree with you a hundred percent on your police work, there, Lou.[/fargo]
Let’s take a look at some recent cases that Crane, Poole and Schmidt have taken recently:
Defend a child who protested against the No Child Left Behind law
Sue the National Guard for failing to protect a famous pizza restaurant from a flood.
Sue a high school for teaching abstinence-only sex education after a 15 year old student contracts HIV
Defend a priest who is accused of harboring illegal aliens
Sue the United States on behalf of a client who was tortured for two years at a detention camp.
Take on Homeland Security over the No Fly list
Defend a doctor accused of euthanizing patients during Hurricane Katrina (lots of FEMA/Bush bashing plus global warming/anti-Bush comments in the summation)
Defend Denny Crane when he is accused of soliciting for gay sex in a men’s room
These are just a handful of cases from the past two seasons. Out of 34 episodes, we see 9 where the firm took a strongly anti-Bush/anti-conservative stance or that ripped on Republicans (the last one was obviously referencing the Larry Craig fiasco). That works out to approximately one quarter of the episodes. And when you factor in that some cases continued for two or more episodes, the percentage increases.
If it’s not too much of a threadjack, I wonder what folks are thinking about this season in general. I’ve been disappointed with it for a few different reasons–the characters, outside of the core of Denny, Alan, Hands, Shirley, and Clarence, when they bother to give him some lines, are forgettable; the preaching has been a bit heavy handed; we’ve seem to be down to just -one- quirky judge, etc.
But over on a messageboard devoted to the show, they seem to think that this season is the best ever. They also didn’t think highly of S3; I rather liked last season. Is it just that they’re a bunch of fanboys, or am I out of the mainstream on this?
Well, yes the show is obviously written with a liberal slant - for more liberal viewers.
But is is no worse than The Unit or NCIS that always seem to have a tragic story about how nobody respects our brave soldiers, followed by a slow-motion video collage of a funeral and patriotic music swelling up to a crescendo in the background with a final close-up of a grieving widow standing next to a small child saluting a flag-draped coffin. If they hammered their point any harder, the nail would come out the other side of my head.
I agree that the show isn’t as good this year as in the past.
In certain episodes from previous years, the preachiness seemed to be offset by a reasonable representation of the opposing point of view. Although the show’s POV would eventually predominate, it was still made clear that the issues were complex and that there was room for reasonable men of good will to differ on how to approach them. This balance seems now to have all but evaporated in favor of a more careless, one-sided and ham-handed approach which is both less persuasive and less educational.
Denny Crane (as mentioned above, the show’s only Republican) has gone from being an interesting and moderately powerful eccentric to an ineffectual full-blown loon.
The focus seems to have shifted away from interesting dramatic and/or humorous interpersonal relationships among the second-tier characters. There’s a lot going on but it seems shallow and scattershot.
Unfortunately, John Larroquette’s character Carl Sack has, IMO, sucked much of the life out of the show (and of course he’s yet another of the legion of men on this show who are besotted with Shirley Schmidt).
And lastly (and most disappointingly) the balcony scenes seem to have lost a certain something. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Crane has become so wacky and ineffectual…I don’t know…but they just don’t seem to pop like they have in seasons past.
However, like Sam said above, I still like it. I just hope I’ll be able to say the same a year from now.
I love Boston Legal and it’s by far my favorite show on TV. I can’t say it’s become more preachy, it’s always been that way. And of course they win every case! That’s one of the meme’s of the show…they never lose at trial. Just go with it.
My problem with it lately is what someone mentioned above…other than Alan, Denny, Jerry and Clarence, the characters just aren’t that interesting. I was so excited when Larroquette came to the show…he had some memorable guest spots on The Practice as a millionaire serial killer. But they have under-used him. A shame. It would have funny to bring him on as Dan Fielding all grown up! Or something other than Shirley’s love interest who has great hair. The funniest thing Carl Sack has done so far is say “I just Googled myself…”
The new associates are also pretty boring…the British girl is OK. The new sassy black girl is occasionally funny. I absolutely loathe that Lorraine woman, I was so hoping her ‘secret past’ was that she was a man, baby! That would have been hilarious. But instead she’s a former british madame. Yawn.