Legal Affairs

The series follows a top Berlin media attorney that has the ability to spin a story either way. The pace is frenetic, and the writing seems good enough - only watched the first episode. But what really annoys me about this series is the filming: dizzy hand held camera, in & out of focus in the same cut and filming the legs when a character is talking... you feel like you are a drunk 3rd person seeing a scene unfold before your VERY drunken eyes! STOP using old/new manual lenses - as good as they are for art photography - for video production, please! Most of us would thank you, I guess...

I'm enjoying the show, but I'm well into episode four and starting to get frustrated by just how poorly translated the captions are. I get lost every couple of lines because they're all over the place and loaded with non sequiturs. I feel like the credits should say "captions by Google Translate" - it's that bad. My German is sketchy, but my English is excellent. Sometimes the sentences are nonsense and leave me grasping at context. This makes the plot hard to follow sometimes, and I'm certain I'm missing details as a result. This is kind of surprising in 2023. You'd think they'd want to encourage an international audience to watch the program, but I guess not.

You're not quite sure about this cracker-jack lawyer when you first meet her. She does not suffer fools and when she's on a mission - or a case - you'd best stay in line or just get out of the way.

The series moves at fast pace with multiple storylines in parallel. The acting is top rate, and each scene draws you into the moment.

Our lawyer protagonist, Leo Roth, takes on cases with ties to the world around social media and those who fall into its traps.

She also carries a torturous memory from her childhood, a memory which is also shared by her sister and closest, perhaps only true friend, Ulli.

Leo also represents her brother-in-law, Ulli's husband, a prominent Senator, Kai, in a tangled mess of a case he's gotten himself mixed up in, and which almost ends up upending Leo's very prestigious career. That case threads it's way through each episode, crescendoing in a most devastating climax in the finale, where Leo finds herself well and truly alone in exposing the truth.

It is a captivating series, that will most definitely draw you in and have you buckled in for an exciting ride. I hope this is not the last we see of Leo Roth.

It's about time that Germany start to embrace what TV can sometimes be;fast-paced, surprising and unexpected entertainment. This series stands up with the best of the its US counterparts.

I particularly loved its flawed and damaged protagonist, and the fact that you can you enjoy the episodes as standalone stories whilst still feeling like you're rewarded for viewing the whole season. It's the perfect kind of high-end production value,escapist show for an evening snuggled in on the sofa.

Though the camera work might be divisive, it certainly gives the show an original vision and it should be celebrated for trying something new in a landscape of TV shows which are sadly all too often limited by risk aversion and fear of "the new".

I hope this isn't the end of the story for LEGAL AFFAIRS.