Raising the bar: Justice à Manhattan

I just discovered this show and cannot believe it was canceled. It was fantastic.

Just another reason why I don't bother with television anymore. (I stumbled across this gem on Netflix, after the fact.) The execs that make the decisions about what stays and what goes are so out of touch their audience.

I just discovered this show and cannot believe it was canceled. It was fantastic.

Just another reason why I don't bother with television anymore. (I stumbled across this gem on Netflix, after the fact.) The execs that make the decisions about what stays and what goes are so out of touch their audience.

I can understand why most people didn't connect, which resulted in the series being canceled. The idea of a law series that centers on "average" defendants (poor people who are stuck in the system by a combination of circumstances and poor choices, and sometimes only the first) is not something we are accustomed. We want to see either the bad guys being chased by the good guys or saintly lawyers and defendants who are unquestionably innocent (like in "To Kill a Mockingbird"). But crime and punishment in real life are far more complex, and that is why the day-to-day of public defenders is a premise that makes such good drama.

(Not that the series is ultra-realistic in every sense; most of the relationships among the characters are less than believable, very made for TV, but they had to be there if the series had any chance of success.)

The bottom line is that there is something remarkably true in the stories of Raising the Bar, something that no other cop or law show ever came close to achieving. The situations of the defendants came straight from David Feige's experience as a PD in the Bronx, and not from stock characters and plots, which puts the human element far higher.

It is impossible not to compare it to Law & Order, the only other series to have 50% of its cast made of public prosecutors. Bar doesn't have the excitement of its competitor, but it is far, far superior in terms of human content. Whenever any of the L&Os versions tries to give us some moral complexity and tackle social issues, it feels spoon-fed and artificial, like a plug for a political agenda. After all, it is basically a show about catching the bad guys and finding the truth, not one about ambiguity - actually, the LESS moral dilemmas you see in L&O, the better the episode.

The same does not happen with Raising the Bar. The focus is on the work of Public Defenders - one of the most unjustly maligned professions in the world - and their clients. The moral complexity springs from the premise, it is not inserted in the story. It is there because the situations regular people face when charged with a crime are complex, and "guilty" x "not guilty" are two terms not always easy to apply. After watching and thinking about it, you imagine yourself as a policeman, prosecutor or judge, and you wonder if you can arrest/prosecute/sentence a person for any crime without any doubts whatsoever regarding what is done. Society suffers less crime if more people who break the law are imprisoned, that's true. But does it have less victims? Hard to say.

There are other shows out there that have more thrill, but none in the legal genre that are that compelling. I hope more people, like another commenter and myself, find this great series on Netflix.

Great job, Feige & company.

What a shame that Raising the Bar was canceled after the second season! It is by the far the most nuanced, well-written legal show I've ever seen. Most shows in its genre pander to the fantasy that the world is divided into good and evil, where the bad guys are cunning and unremorseful and the good guys are always law enforcement. Raising the Bar is one of the few shows that show the defense side, but it doesn't do that at the expense of the prosecution side. Even the show's initial villains are rehabilitated as complicated, nuanced characters. As a lawyer, I can vouch for how close the show gets to reality (except for how attractive and well-dressed the characters are, of course!) it is also incredibly entertaining without sacrificing its complexity. I can't say enough good things about this show - I actually shelled out money to buy the DVDs, which I almost never do. Highly recommend!

The mostly young cast of Raising The Bar and the performances they give will probably interest more young people into going into the law than any other show since Perry Mason. It's also a lot more realistic than Perry Mason.

The real test for this show and perhaps it's a bit unfair to compare it with Steven Bochco's last big NYPD Blue in terms of staying power, is to see if the premise carries it beyond the attractive cast. It certainly sustains Law And Order despite cast changes that have completely eliminated the original members now. That's what happened with NYPD Blue, but they did have Dennis Franz to anchor that show.

Bochco got his cast from a variety of sources from daytime and nighttime television, in some cases the players have experience in both. There are role models aplenty here.

My favorite is Mark-Paul Gosselaar who shed the Zack Morris image in NYPD Blue has now gone on to a different idealistic character in the person of Legal Aid lawyer Jerry Kellerman. There was an episode where his supervisor at the panel criticized him for being unable to watch an injustice being persecuted. Now that's someone I can always admire. Gosselaar as Kellerman is charming, mature, and idealistic and looking a whole lot better since he shed the long hair from the first season.

For those who like hard as nails prosecutors, Currie Graham also from NYPD Blue is supervising bureau chief assistant district attorney Nick Baldo. Hard to believe that Jack McCoy and Baldo work for the same office. They think they're doing society a service, but it's also a numbers game with them, to rack up a collection of scalps so to speak. Baldo shows why the Kellermans of the world are really needed.

And you have to love Mary Jane Kaczmarek as the tough female judge who's succeeded in what was a male dominated profession. Remember it was only 28 years ago a woman finally made it to the Supreme Court. She's had to be tough to survive. It's also twisted her somewhat, in many ways she's the most complex character on the show.

Shows that have as long a run as NYPD Blue are few and far between, but I'm hoping this one has a real long 7 to 8 year run. The scripts are literate and factual and the players make you care about their characters. What's not to like?

The first season was OK, but the second season sparkles. The stories are solid, with usually three or four sub-plots that wrap up during the episode, plus the continuing story arcs regarding the major characters. Gosselar continues and improves upon his work in NYPD Blue. Gloria Reuben is her usual solid self. Jonathan Scarfe was a surprise to me, having never seen him before, while Currie Graham plays his usual sour but solid guy.

I'm less taken with Jane Kazmarek, whose character is neither nice nor nasty enough to be a treat. The supporting characters beyond those mentioned above all do an adequate or better job, with the two female attorneys -- one for the DA's office and the other for the Public Defender's -- provide eye-candy and do a good job.

The fact that New York City has no Public Defender's office, with that role taken by the Legal Aid Society, seems an odd twist on reality to have taken, given that using the proper group would not seem to have changed the show at all.

All in all, I look forward to each episode.