Avvocati a Los Angeles

It's the L.A. law firm of McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney and Kuzak. In the pilot opening, divorce lawyer Arnie Becker (Corbin Bernsen) and his secretary Roxanne Melman (Susan Ruttan) find senior partner Norman Chaney dead in his office. Leland McKenzie (Richard Dysart) and Douglas Brackman, Jr. (Alan Rachins) are the other senior partners. Michael Kuzak (Harry Hamlin) is the rising star partner. They and the other various characters over the years deal with court as well as life.

Steven Bochco created one of the most popular series of the '80s. It's a legal drama about a law firm in L.A. It featured some great actors who created some iconic characters. On top of that, they had great chemistry. Their interactions is half of the fun. It made a mythical sexual position an actual thing. Now that's popularity. With such a great large cast, a few defections do happen. And that is one of the reason for this show's demise. By 1992, some of the cast starts to disappear. At that point during its initial run, I lost interest. This show relies on its characters and it lost too many of them. This award winning show had 8 seasons and a movie.

I absolutely loved the first few seasons of this show. The original actors were a great ensemble cast and each character was believable and likable. The story lines were unique and entertaining. But after they started leaving the show, the replacement characters just were not interesting and the storylines became silly and contrived. The acting suffered. When they added the religious character that was really the death knell. Not only was it illogical that the firm would have hired her, but her acting was subpar to say the least. Season 7 was awful. Thats as far as I got. I just didn't want to waste anymore time.

I binge watched LA Law through Season 5 over the span of a few weeks. (I found that I could just listen to it, and got as much out of it as watching it.) The acting was great and the writing mostly great for those seasons. Am I the only one who liked Diana Muldaur as Roslyn Shays? She was spectacular; I loved how her presence affected everyone on staff differently. Larry Drake was a fantastic Benny. Binge watching did underscore, though, how yelly the litigators were.

With Season 6 came a lot of drama and overemotional scenes plus hack writing. I'm assuming it just gets worse, so I'm not continuing.

This was a seminal show -- probably the first "lawyer show" that wasn't really a detective program in disguise. L.A. Law introduced us to many of the particulars of a law firm: The staff meeting, administrative hearings, appellate court argument, as well as almost all aspects of criminal and CIVIL litigation. It was an amazing program that, when it focused on the intriguing cases that came to the firm, was arguably the best show on television in the late 80s and early 90s. If I recall correctly only Hill Street Blues, The West Wing, and L.A. Law won 4 Emmys for best drama (now maybe Mad Men?). There's a reason this show ranks in the upper echelon of television dramas.

To be fair to its critics, however, I can't remember ANY program that was this good that, almost abruptly, became so bad! Although I continued to watch it until the end, it was hit-and-miss at best, and sometimes just plain terrible after the fifth season.

This show concerning the lives of lawyers at an LA law firm was a breakout hit during its first season for its well written plots and great characters. This of course was because of some incredible writers and great actors. However as the show entered about it's sixth season the best writers and actors began to leave en masse the plotlines fell apart and the show became much more stale. Avoid this period if you can.