I’m going to try to keep this short and sweet, er, civil (to the extent possible), which shouldn’t be too hard given the amount of fast-forwarding that comes with such a terrible pilot. The opening
scene truly set the tone for the show and was about as ugh-worthy as it gets. It featured a couple talking to each other through prison glass as the husband asks his wife to promise him that she’ll move on after he’s gone because their girls need a man in the house. She responds accordingly, with tears and lip-quivering and schmaltziness, culminating in the coup de gras of cheesy: she puts her hand on the glass and he tenderly places his hand over hers. Touching! Right!? No? That was lame? Well, if it wasn’t, the inter-cutting between this heartbreaking love story and with his lawyer racing to the jail with a last minute Hail Mary plan to stay his execution certainly shoves it over the top. Yeah, that all went down in the first minute and didn’t do the show any favors at all… in that it accurately represents the tone, the writing, and the eye-roll-inducing flavor of the rest of the pilot. If they really wanted people to accidentally watch the show, they should have started off with the first few minutes of a different program.Going in, I had heard that Jimmie Smits (who headlines this mess as a Supreme Court Justice who leaves the bench in order to defend the little guy against the big, bad system) was the best part of the show. This is true. This is also a very sad commentary on the rest of the show, because Jimmie, the supposed cherry on top of this mess, is awful. I’ve never been a huge fan of his (even less so after his disappointing turn as Miguel Prado on Dexter’s misguided third season), but I have to admit, in a sea of awful, he was only mostly awful. In his defense (apparently I’ve been watching/reading too
much media from across the pond because I just spelled that “defence”), the writing and concept of this pilot were the primary problems. I don’t know that anyone could have made this role work, but Smits fell painfully short. Good god, even the scenes that didn’t involve cringe-worthy courtroom antics were painful and forced. At one point, Smits’s character, having a crisis of conscience, literally watches footage of his late father in the dark, with tears in his eyes. You know, because his character has depth and stuff. Ooh! And a gambling problem! And he's a lothario! Thems are layers.The supporting cast, if possible, is even worse. It’s barely even worth
mentioning, except that two of his unfortunate underlings were familiar faces trapped in thankless, thoroughly unlikeable roles. Carly Pope stars as Lucinda, who’s basically Lisbeth Salander, but, you know, sexy and sassy (which I believe is required by Standards and Practices... this is network TV after all). Being an alum of Ryan Murphy’s prior pet project Popular, methinks Pope should really be angling for a role on Murphy’s newest pet project… a little show called Glee. Then there’s Jesse Bradford, whom you may recognize as the brother from Bring It On. Based on all the wholesale thievery going on, I think it’s safe to say that Hellcats would be more than happy to give him the exact same role, and sad to say that a stint on Hellcats that would
be a step up. Yeah, I’ll just let that statement sink in for a minute.Even if I had never seen another legal show before or if I was unfamiliar with this brand of cheesiness, I’m confident I would have hated this pilot. I did a hell of a lot of fast-forwarding, so if you loved this show and think I’m crazy, maybe I just skipped over all the half-second, insanely awesome bits that sneaked in amongst the crap. It’s possible, right? Ugh. This show is absurd, predictable, and above all, sanctimonious. The powerful bad boy resigns from his position on high to fight for the little guy. I can practically hear the inspirational music swelling… no, wait, I can actually hear it. Groan. Every time I stopped to watch a few minutes of the show, I was met with all the courtroom blustering, the defiant speechifying, and the ethical soapboxing that you’d expect with this kind of a concept, only worse. When the judge overturns the death row inmate’s guilty verdict, you’re not surprised in the least when minutes later the guy is sauntering out of the courtroom, all smiles. Yeah, because that’s exactly how it works.
Long story short, you’d have to be a true, indiscriminate die hard for legal dramas or to have never even seen a legal drama before to find much charm in this hard-boiled, pretentious mess.
The verdict is in… and I’m out.
Pilot Grade: F
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