Raising the Bar
From Zanecorpwiki
This, the latest creation by Seven Bochco, is a collection of stereo types rudely fused together into an unsophisticated and ultimately uninteresting commentary on the modern legal system. The show's marketing material and promo interviews with Bochco talk about exploring conflict, challenging idealism, looking at both sides of the system. It's easy to see how the show got made, but hard to see how it'll continue unless it matures very quickly.
The show is a rude play of caricatures. The defense attorney who is constantly exasperated by the inequity of the system. The young prosecutor tempted by the win at any cost mentality of her office. And what? They're dating? A recipe for drama! The wealthy defense attorney seeking redemption for his privileged life, the smarmy DA who speaks only in sexual innuendo but still gets the job done.
When the show departs from the obvious stereotypes, it gets even worse. The judge (and so far there seems to be only one) is a bitter and self-serving former defense attorney who now refuses prosecution sanctioned deals as being too lenient and actively engages in the harassment of defense witnesses. Apparently, she needs to be tough in order to move up the ranks of judgeship, never mind that all her cases so far would have been reversed on appeal had the heroic actions of the defense, and the sexual favors offered by her flamingly gay clerk, not stymied her mission to sentence every defendant to the maximum.
The show tries so hard to make its points that the points get lost in a sea of melodramatic drivel. It's easy to see the idea, the tension points, the drivers. In fact, they're impossible to miss because it's all spelled out in such a way that we need engage in no critical thought. This leaves the viewer completely disengaged because there's no role for the viewer except that of passive receiver of tired clichés.
The show is poorly executed and it's pretty easy to see why: it simply reaches to far and tries to cram to much in. The production staff simply lacks the talent to do a good job with the scale of displaying the entire legal system. Bochco has a long history of excellent shows, but in casting the net so wide, the tale becomes unfocused and childish in execution.
