Boston Justice

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.

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!

I don't know, for a guy in his early 70's who has been royally and unfairly panned for his entire career, William Shatner as Denny Crane may be the absolute highlight of his long career! What a role and what a show. My ultimate benchmark as to how good a show is how fast I am back to that show during the commercial breaks. Didn't miss one second of Boston Legal so I guess that tells you that I liked it a lot. Of course the "Shat Man" drew me in but the overall show got me hooked. Well worth the late hour on Sundays. Rene Auberjonois ( of DS 9 fame) was an added surprise.

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.

I'm going to make this as short as possible short, as I have little to say. As far as "pure" drama series' go, Boston Legal is the one that had it all right.

Fabulous actors, writers with imagination and a sense of humor, and most of all, the series had a soul. It had an opinion, and the nerve to bring it forth. Entertainment that is afraid of making a statement can be relaxing, but relaxing entertainment that manages to make a statement, whether the viewer agrees with the statement or not, is something much greater.

5 seasons is a lot better than a lot of worthy series have done, but still, the cancellation is a huge injustice and I will sorely miss the wits that this series had to offer. It is a shame that a series such as Boston Legal does not reach the grand audience that it well deserves.