A Night Court Before Christmas

Just like the original series took a couple of seasons to hit its stride, is the revival is taking the same track? We don't know yet, but they're off to a much better start than the pilot episode provided Season 1.

Kapil Talwalkar as Niel the clerk is out and while no explanation was given, it is probably for the best as his character was all kinds of awkward and creepy in Season 1. He's replaced by Gary Anthony Williams who is a fine comedic actor in his own right and I hope he stays with the show going forward. He was fantastic as Flobert.

However, the biggest change is that they finally found the formula "secret sauce" that made the first series work so well. The writing on this episode was better than anything they did in the first season and I'm proud to say, the Dan Fielding we all knew and loved from the original run is mostly back.

The rest of the cast are much better in their roles as they seem to understand and execute them better now than they did in Season 1. While John Larroquette still outshines everybody; he doesn't carry the whole episode, his costars (Melissa Rauch especially) hold their own and you get the kind of legit laughs that remind you of the original run of the show.

The only drawback is that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar seemed to be reading directly from the cue cards even though he was playing himself. One of his jokes deserved a much better laugh track than it was given too. But it was still a very enjoyable cameo.

Hope this portends good things for this going forward.