Public Defense

Raising the Bar

By Gideon

You’ve probably heard by now that Steven Bochco and David Feige’s Raising the Bar premieres on Monday at 10pm on TNT. It stars Zack Morris as a public defender and Malcolm’s mom as a crazy judge (who, thankfully, doesn’t seem to yell as much in this new role).

I’ll probably tune in, just to see what real world experience brings to a legal show. The reviews have been mixed, but that shouldn’t stop you.

For example, some guy in the Boston Herald writes:

In this universe, justice is dispensed on the basis of personal relationships between the court representatives. The defendants are pawns between rivals, roommates or lovers who look to one-up each other.

Never has the justice system looked so silly.

That’s not silly! I read that and think: “Hey! Maybe this show is true-to-life!” So we’ll see. Will this come close to unseating The Practice as the best legal show of all time? I don’t think anything can, but I’ll be very entertained if it comes remotely close.

If you’ve been living under a rock (or just without TV) and want to get a glimpse of this show, here are some links:

Behind-the-scenes

Sneak Peek

But, if you’re using Firefox, you’ll have to download some stupid Turner plugin. Which, in this day and age, is just annoying. So instead, you’re better off using IE for these links (ugh).

Note to TNT folks: There are, like, 200 video plugins out there that don’t require some software install. Use one of them [or just use Flash!?!]. Don’t make me install some special plugin for your website only and under absolutely zero circumstances should you force me to use IE to look at a website. Because once you do that, I’ll never come back to your site.

Full post as published by A Public Defender on August 28, 2008 (boomark / email).