Philly

This was a terrific binge-watching experience, with excellent writing meeting outstanding acting and directing. It's one of the best legal dramas that I've seen.

Works within this genre -- books, movies or TV series -- are at their best when they focus on philosophical discussions about the unintended consequences of particular laws and ethical issues; including both the "low-hanging fruit" variety -- defending those who commit heinous acts, Constitutional issues like the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th & 8th amendments, etc -- AND the more exotic like attorney- client privilege, pre-trial discovery, etc.

Philly *clearly* embraced these philosophical discussions and the show felt like the *early* seasons of Law & Order in this regard; before L&O's trite, crappy writing and melodramatic plot lines took hold.

In fact, my one criticism of this show's design was that it crammed far too many of these topics into each episode; leaving a *lot* of unexplored drama on the table as a result. Nevertheless, there is a whole lot to love about this dead-before-its-time series so if you like legal thrillers, give it a go when you find it. You won't be sorry.

In one way, I'm glad I didn't find Philly until ten years after it was canceled. I knew it wouldn't last from the outset, so was saved from being disappointed when it was taken away.

I think every one of the 22 episodes was a gem; the cast was wonderful and the stories intelligently and realistically presented.

Kim Delaney was perfect as the idealistic but determined and smart defense attorney, making a difference in a seedy system.

Tom Everett Scott played her less idealistic, but equally determined partner beautifully.

Rick Hoffman played prosecutor Terry Loomis very well, but one wonders how he could remain on of the top lawyers in the DAs office when he lost so often to Delaney and Scott.

Kyle Secor as the Asst. DA and ex to Delaney was a great foil.

And Dena Detrich as the judge with a dog she brought into court supplied comic relief, but also realistic counsel to the attorneys. Much more successfully than did Robert Harper as the buffoonish Judge Haws.

I imagine after 911, audiences weren't sympathetic to legal defense. I think this show was a victim of the time it came to air.

I wanted more, that's high praise.

Just finished watching all 22 episodes of Philly. I thoroughly enjoyed every one of them. Engaging plots. Sympatico characters. Convincing solid acting across the board. I suspect that some features of this series survive in the concept of The Good Wife; having watched 5 seasons of The Good Wife, while watching Philly I found myself frequently seeing similarities. I don't know the history of this series, or why it got canceled after just 1 season. But TV bean counters/ execs often display very strange logic in their choices of shows to keep vs shows to kill. Sometimes good stuff gets the ax, while plenty of junk goes on to survive. Philly is definitely one show which easily deserved to go on...

I am still praying that they will bring back this show. I thought it was going to flop right away, but it lasted a whole season. I expected it to be back. Instead my viewing habits have turned more to NBC to watch SUV, Law and Order, etc. The only thing that ABC has to come close is "The Practice" and the plots are getting old. "Philly" seemed "realer" than "Practice", not as canned.

While I enjoyed the show, what bothers me the most is seeing people make comments about it when they've only seen one episodes and five minutes of another. Please, be a little more educated before you start telling other people what was wrong with the show.