Boston Legal

I think you should watch this show.

It's delightfully weird.

Totally unrealistic, it has just enough I-don't-know-what to enable the all important willing suspension, and once you got that, you're golden.

Here's the little stuff, the stuff that you'll enjoy but don't need to go out of your way for:

1) It has Candice Bergen! Bergen fulfills her role (uber-classy uber-MILF) perfectly. (Plus, she's Candice Bergen. To this date, no one does Bergen as well as Bergen.)

2) Clemenson/Espenson is likable and offbeat. One of the best "spice" characters since, oh, I dunno, Hill Street Blues.

3) Sometimes John Larroquette shows up, and he's so tall! He doesn't have to actually say anything funny. He's John Larroquette. It's a grin just for him to show up. (That sounds dismissive and snarky, but it's not meant to be. I honestly believe this is Larroquette's great comic gift: he shows up. That's all he needs to do. That's what he does. It doesn't matter what he says, because all the humor is in the wry, sardonic (and tall) presence. On Night Court, he had some funny lines, but that was actually a distraction. Remember The West Wing and The Practice... he had no funny lines there, but the effect was the same: Larroquette's wry, sardonic (and tall) presence = a grin. (Although, to be fair, in The Practice he did actually play a character in addition to showing up.))

4) It has William Shatner!

And here's the big stuff, the stuff you'll never experience if you don't go out of your way to watch a few episodes:

1) It has William Shatner! Star Trek gave us William Shatner giving us Captain James T. Kirk. Boston Legal gives us William Shatner giving us William Shatner (as Denny Crane)... the intelligent goof we always suspected was playing Captain Kirk. Even if you weren't a Trekkie, it's such a cool feeling to feel like you're getting to hang out with the *real* Captain Kirk, the (intelligent, goofy) man behind the myth.

2) Despite -- or rather, alongside -- the show's unabashed unrealistic stance, it takes an honest stab at depicting honest emotions, especially (but not only) in the traditional closing scene, where Spader/Shore and Shatner/Crane share a Scotch, a cigar, a presumably rather nippy Boston evening, and a friendship.

3) It has James Spader! Who? James Spader! Who's Jame's Spader? I don't know, I never heard of him before I saw this show, but he's incredible. His character (Alan Shore) brings something unlike anything I've ever seen on television... a character that is, I think, truly Shakesperean in its immediacy and otherness.

In fact, I believe this is the secret ingredient of Boston Legal's success. Spader's Shore has a Shakesperean otherness, and once we accept this otherness (as we are compelled to do), it doesn't matter how unrealistic (or compressed or reductive) the rest of the show is. Once we (the audience) have signed up for this otherness, once the writers have that signature on the dotted line, they're free play around and cut corners as they like. Thankfully, they often (though not always) do so to good effect.

Forget Desperate Housewives or anything else. Boston Legal is the comedy-drama that has been missing from TV for a long, long time. I barely watched "The Practice" but I got hooked when James Spader and William Shatner had guest-roles. When I heard these two would lead the spin off "Boston Legal", I was exuberant!

James Spader as Alan Shore is by far the best acting on TV. The guy is priceless, reaching a level of pure arrogance that you can't help but love. William Shatner as Denny Krane is just as good. The women of the show bring a lot more beauty then Desperate Housewives. I view them as support characters, however as this show is all about Alan Shore and DENNY KRANE.

Boston Legal is one of the best takes on a TV legal drama that I have seen. It manages to mix drama and comedy pretty well for the most part and introduces us to Alan and Denny who are magnetic characters, played to perfection by James Spader and an incredible William Shatner. To review this whole 5 season series (which i have steadily worked through on DVD over the last 2 months) would take forever, so let me highlight a few good and bad points as i see them.

Season 1 & 2 had a sharper edge and better dialogue than subsequent seasons. It felt almost as if they were searching for better ratings from season 3 onwards and chose to introduce characters and plots which would deliberately jazz things up a bit. In my opinion the show suffered because of this.

The characters Jefferey Coho, Claire Simms, Lorraine Weller and Clarence / Clarice Bell added virtually nothing to the show that wasn't there already (other than the cross dressing element) and as they failed to perk up ratings its almost as if David E Kelly thought "well... tried some new faces, didn't work, lets write them out and try something else."

I also felt that the writers seemed to ignore the more obvious direction that they could have taken, which would have been to flesh out the Denny and Alan characters even more. You are treated to some glimpses of their past when they are discussing their lives on the balcony, but Dennys brilliant former career is never seen first hand and Alans many previous painful issues are only represented in the narrative. Perhaps if even more screen time had been given to these two instead of trying to continually bolster up the supporting characters, the show would have been more successful.

The recurring theme of the lawyers in the show standing trial for their various indiscretions and always getting away with it was an over used plot and began to wear a bit thin. Similarly, I can only recall one trial verdict of any kind that didn't go in favour of Mssrs Crane, Poole and Schmidt.

There were flashes of poetry with this show that i felt genuinely moved by. To name a few .....

• Alans closing argument to allow Shirleys father the right to a dignified death

• Dennys dominant yet tender legal confrontation with his "son" Donny.

• Alans arguing against the death penalty in front of the supreme court

• Paul's fatherly approach to everyone at the firm.

• Alans good and honest heart (which he tries hard to conceal)

• The brilliant portrayal of Jerry Espenson by Christain Clemenson

• The unbreakable friendship between Denny and Alan, and subsequently between most of the characters at Crane, Poole and Schmidt.

In summation (may as well use the legal terminology), despite the shows many lulls and obvious flaws, I absolutely loved it. William Shatner is a revelation in his role and James Spader is Perfect in his.

On a personal note, I have lost count of the times my wife has gone ballistic because I have responded to a situation or question by simply saying in the appropriate tone ................. "Denny Crane!"

I have no words to describe it. Everything in this show is a masterpiece. A must to watch, over and over again.

After 8 episodes of Boston Legal, I am hooked. I was a big fan of The Practice for the first 4 seasons or so but lost interest until the final season when Spader was brought on. His emmy-winning portrayal of Alan Shore has transferred seamlessly to this spin off, and the rest of the ensemble cast is, by and large, excellent. It took a couple of episodes for me to warm up to the Lori Colson character but now I can see why she is the female center of the show -- she is effectively the anti-Shore. Shatner is (surprisingly) brilliant and, while the Tara character doesn't get enough airtime, I love every second she's on screen. The tone of the show is a pitch-perfect mix of quirkiness, drama and dark humor, and the pacing is much swifter than The Practice, which in the later seasons became sluggish, droning and depressing. Here's hoping Boston Legal can keep it going!