That’s pretty much my impression as well. Not just the quirky characters, but the overall barely-contained insanity of the original (which, IMHO, developed organically until it seemed kind of “second nature”). Like others, I’ll continue to watch for a while to see what, if any, personality it develops; continued viewing will depend on the outcome.
With regards to Bull, he’s probably still on the aliens’ world helping them get things off the upper shelves.
The director of the first 2 episodes was Pamela Fryman. I normally like her work (“How I Met Your Mother” among others) a lot and–l Iike many others here–am hoping this series gets better.
Pretty much this. The first couple of seasons had good parts but the whole cast didn’t mesh. Markie Post’s idealistic Christine was the needed antagonist to Dan. After that the characters quips worked off their characters rather than random weirdness. Three years.
These two episodes had none of that. Maybe the characters will grow, but I’m not going along for the ride. John Larroquette was on a different planet from the rest. Maybe it’s just that he’s a vastly superior actor, which is quite likely. But he fit perfectly into his character and the others were in an SNL skit spoofing the show.
I wonder if it would’ve been more interesting for them to have reversed things.
So he pulls the bald-guys-in-the-courtroom stunt, and it fails, and then he talks with the judge about not half-assing it as an attorney, and then he gets around to going at it like a public defender who caaares — an ending that, IMHO, isn’t especially funny (or especially, uh, Dan Fielding).
But now imagine it the other way around: say he’s kind of half-assing it at the start of the episode, and, after talking things over with the judge, ends the episode by smirkingly responding to some eyewitness testimony with that bald-guys-in-the-courtroom bit to show that, okay, maybe he thinks his clients are low-lifes, but he’s now using his whole ass to go to bat for them.
What happens if they go out on that note?
I’ll give it a few more episodes to see if it improves, but so far I’m not impressed. John Larroquette is of course brilliant, but he’s not enough to carry the whole show. The new bailiff is funny, but only in small doses. The prosecutor, clerk and maintenance guy are pretty formulaic and bland. They don’t seem to have figured out what to do with Melissa Rauch, I don’t think she’s had an actual funny line yet - it seems they’re consciously avoiding the quiet sarcasm with occasional full out terrorizing everyone else that she did so well in BBT.
I noticed that Rauch and her husband are both listed as Executive Producers. I don’t know a thing about how TV shows are made, but somehow that doesn’t strike me as a good thing.
Oh yeah. Ditto.
I’m as big a fan as you’ll find of the original, and I found the first episode to be, if not amazing, at least very watchable, probably more so than most of the first-season episodes of the orginal. (There were some real cringers in that season!) I’m certainly sold enough to continue to see if the show can find its legs properly.
Christopher Plummer even more so.
How about David Warner? “You’ve not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.”
Add me to the list of people who both loved the original and thought Larroquette acted circles around everybody else.
The first two eps were OK but kind of bland, I thought. I like Rauch but she didn’t really stand out as the new Judge Stone. I think she’ll be OK though. I would like to see he start to embrace the weirdness of it all – it doesn’t have to be Mel Torme and remember Harry every episode but I think they can manage that into the stories and let her get a little odder along the way. Stone also has a fiancé upstate so I think there will be something about that - maybe she has to choose her new career or him.
Fielding is a different character too. He’s not the wild sex pervert any more and is now the old curmudgeon. I don’t think they can really do the lecherous characterization now but I wonder if they could nudge it here and there a bit. I don’t know.
The rest of the characters are OK I guess. I think they all need a little room to develop. I thought the initial defendant was great and him quitting was funny. I guess we won’t see him back though.
I was thinking that, too. Bernadette (her character on TBBT) was snarky and bullying, a counterpoint to her small stature, squeaky voice and cute clothing, and I suspect that Rauch (and the other producers) wanted to make the Abby character not come across as anything like Bernadette. As a result, at least initially, Abby winds up being bland.
Just got around to watching the first two eps last night.
The first was okay. Establishing characters and setting up personalities. Just like the original series.
The second was just bad. I’ll put it down two a misstep and hope things get better.
I think one trap we’re falling into is comparing the new series to our best memories of the old series. The original was a rock star when taken as a whole, but it did have it’s duds as well. Judge the new on it’s own merits.
Yeah I don’t even remember the pre-Markie-Post first and second seasons of the original. Granted, I was 5 when it was on. But if they even showed those seasons in reruns, I don’t remember them at all. It really didn’t hit its stride until a few seasons in.
The actors in this version are throwing me off. The clerk looks like a slightly different Utkarsh Ambudkar (the guy from Ghosts). The prosecutor looks like Nasim Pedrad (from SNL). I came in to the first episode a little late and I thought the janitor was Phil from the original series. Then you got the lady from TBBT but not using the voice I’m used to, and Dan Fielding with a beard. But it all takes place on a very familiar set. It makes my head hurt.
The best part of the first 2 seasons was probably Selma Diamond. She was awesome.
She was one of the writers of the Show of Shows and about half the inspiration for the Sally Rogers character on the Dick Van Dyke Show.
I feel like we lost her and Coach on Cheers the same year. Not sure if I remember correctly.
I have Nightcourt on DVD, when I bought it, no one was showing it.
Dan Fielding wasn’t on at first and didn’t really come into his own until Markie Post joined the cast as mentioned above.
That reminds me of how Selma Diamond died of lung cancer and then the actress who replaced her-Florence Halop–only lasted one season after dying of lung cancer as well. Such a tragedy. 
Yes yes yes. I was thinking about her watching the first episode of this show.
You are correct. Nicholas Colasanto passed away on February 12, and Diamond passed away on May 13. Almost 3 months apart to the day.
Was Markie Post’s character really into Princess Diana or the Royal Family or something? Or am I misremembering?
At first, they slowly dropped that.
You are correct. It wasn’t something I’d say was central to her character, but it was used as a plot point a few times.
If they have Jane Krakowski as a were-lawyer, I’ll definitely watch it.
