Review – Boston Legal Season 1

If you had told me that I would be watching, and enjoying, a legal drama featuring William Shatner (Here forward referred to as The Shat!) and James Spader, I would have been fairly certain you had been taking illicit substances,I would have suggested a fine rehab clinic and perhaps a good shrink.

But here I am, watching Boston Legal, and enjoying it quite a bit. This show blurs the lines of humor and drama as well as those between right and wrong. They offer you a character you like defending a position, or person, that is morally reprehensible. It also offers us some fairly scuzzy people behaving with kindness and decency.

David E. Kelly, best known for Ally Mcbeal, is the producer of the show. While Legal shares some of the bizarreness of Mcbeal, it does not come across as being weird for the sake of being weird. There are some distinctly odd people such as Denny Crane (The Shat! in a role that had to have been created just for him.) and Alan Shore (Spader), but the strangeness is reigned in and is consistent with the characters.

The one gripe I have is the mid season addition of Betty White. She plays an assistant to Alan Shore whose extremely sarcastic personality is surprising given her image as a sweet elderly lady. The contrast is amusing, but detracts from the other characters.

Jeremy Lynch