Boston Legal General Discussion

I'm only on the first season, about to start the second, but I can easily say this is one of the best, if not the best, TV shows on today. William Shatner is freakin' brilliant, as is James Spader. Actually, the entire cast is brilliant, except that Lori woman. She's just not funny, and she has probably three facial expressions that I describe as being "confused," "bewildered" and "confused" again.

You can't help compare this show somewhat to Ally McBeal, and you get the idea that David E. Kelley missed doing legal shows. It's not dissimilar overall, being a comedy mixed with a legal drama, but this doesn't really roam into the impossible and mad-cat as much as Ally McBeal did. And truth be told, though I'm a fan of Ally McBeal, this is just so much funnier (and has a much more diverse, older and less attractive cast).

So with that, I'll leave you with one thought:

Denny Crane.

Something weird happened in the second season; a few of the original characters disappeared (as had occured on Ally McBeal) and replaced with newer, younger... supposedly more hip actors.

At its core, it still has Denny Crane and Andy Shore, which still makes it an absolutely brilliant show... but these new characters are extremely uninteresting themselves and don't seem to have much to do with the core cast anyway. Very odd, I think.

I'm not a fan of that Schmidt woman, but she's there and I'm not gonna complain.

I can't remember the name of the show it spun off from. The Firm or something. Anyhow, that show was on for years and we never watched it.
(edit: I think it was The Practice, sounds right)

At the very last of of it, as it was going away, they had a storyline with Spader coming in and causing hell for those poor people. We saw it advertised, and we watched it and got hooked.

Spader met up with Shatner, and it got even cooler. Don't recall how many shows, seems like about 9 or 10, then that series ended, and Boston Legal started.

I think we watched all of season one, and caught the first of season two, and just quit watching it, don't remember why, I thought it was hilarious. I quit watching right after Betty White went on trial for killing that serial killer dude.

I loved most of it, but I remember being angry at a few cases, a lot of moral legaise and super liberal sanctimony, and it hurt my conservative ideals, so I think that's mostly why I stopped watching. I was a huge fan of Denny Crane, I loved how he got hookers and stuff and wasn't asahmed. A guy like that in real life I would shun, in the show it was hilarious.

But in the end, I guess it was just too much Captain Janeway wanting to kill half her crew to save some alien nebula that they wander across that they don't even know if it's alive or not, and all this prime directive bull**** mumbo jumbo rot on every case, these speech's and ****.

Though I did like Denny when he went into open court with the gun and shot it off by accident, then went on about gun rights. The smirks Murphy Brown gave him pissed me off, and it was somewhere in there that I saw the show was making me angry sometimes over silly storylines, so I bailed.

I would like to get back into it, Spader is a genius, and Shatner is a treasure. Betty White and Murphy Brown I can do without I guess.

Betty White's cooled off in the show lately, and Shirly Shmidt still appears. I can do without her too. Where we're up to now, Denny Crane just got done dating a midget. She got pissed off at his views of the Middle East, 'cause she's Jewish.

At the beginning of season 2 and season 3, both times I got a little confused (and pissed off) by the shake-ups in the cast... but I got used to the new people pretty quick.

Some of the cases you can't really relate to their side of, unfortunately, but you just have to take them as they come. I think a big point of the show is that they often defend clients on charges they just can't agree with themselves, but they get up there and ask all the right questions and give their closings, all the same.

On one occasion, Alan Shore (Spader) had to defend the US because of their Global Gag rule. He didn't agree with it, I don't agree with it, but he defended it and won all the same. It makes for interesting TV.

Denny Crane being a red blooded Republican is comedy. He's got guns all over the place, and in season 2 he shot a total of 3 people (one of those people he shot one two ocassions, too). He's pro death pentalty, pro-life. Honestly, he may embarass Republicans, if he wasn't for him being the biggest mac daddy of all mac daddys.

The dynamic relationship between Denny and Alan is what makes the show. They've got differing views on everything, but they can respect each other and have a scotch at the end of the day. It's cool that they're so loyal to each other.

I've got the 8th season of the Practice which introduces Alan Shore. I haven't watched it all yet because Yoyo's not interested (she loves Boston Legal, but the Practice is too serious). Early on in the season he defends a child-hood friend who apparently killed the woman he was having an affair with. During the trial, the defendant's mother bribes a witness (Betty White, playing a completely different character to her Boston Legal character) and the partners in the firm find out, thinking it's Alan. Eugene says they'll fire Alan as soon as the trial's over.

Alan wins the trial, then finds out his friend was completely, 100% guilty. The eventually fire Alan, and Tara gives Alan a heads-up, and they fire her too. Then I think Alan sues them, and the people of the Practice are screwed because Alan brought in more revenue than all of the partners combined.

That's all I watched so far. I was looking forward to seeing Denny, actually.

I'm going to start refering to myself in the third person. It kind of makes me seem more... relevant. If I say my name enough, people will fear it!

David Whidden!


Yeah, that spader friend had some evidence in the tree house I think. He was guilty as sin.

Denny shows up, but they had him acting like he had mental problems. I missed parts of either The Practice or Boston Legal, and I got the idea that it wasn't alziemers like they thought, but something that got cured, cause he is sharp as a tack now.

I loved that last part of the Practice, because I didn't really like any of those people, I identified with Spader, so he was crapping on them, and they were all high and mighty and stupid, and he handed their ass to them.

I didn't like the Practice cause they were always full of MORAL INDIGNANCY and spouted all these ideals and political views, and were all super dramatic about it, in comes Spader and he is the most sarcastic dude you ever met, and he just busted them all up.

Denny Crane isn't sharp as a tack now, he's still affected by the Alziemers... though he calls it Mad Cow Disease. He still wins cases, sometimes on pure flukes or with Alan's intervention. He always acknowledges that he's not the Denny Crane he was, but this new one is better.

The Alzeimers is not serious yet, but they talk about "what-if" sometimes. Alan's got to put a bullet in Denny if it ever gets too bad, and that goes against everything Alan believes in. But I've got an inkling that's how they'll end the show.

I'm at high risk for it, as my Grandma had it, but they claim by the time I'm an old feller and get it, they will have a cure.

Hopefully. Don't seem like it's that bad for the person with it, it's bad on the care takers that have to care for them.

My grandfather had a mild case of it, but he couldn't hear, speak, and he cut his fingers off, so he couldn't write (plus he had the shakes, forget what the disease is called. Not Parkinson; something else that makes you shake uncontrollably)... I guess we never really could work out how bad it was.

I'm probably already getting it. I'm kind of prone to forget things now. But it wouldn't be Alzeimers. More like Youngzeimers.

Watching the Practice episodes that lead up to Boston Legal now. It's pretty interesting seeing the demise of that practice, and seeing Alan Shore screwing them over repeatedly. In all honesty, after watching a show for 8 years I can't imagine rooting for the demise of the firm... but with Alan Shore, you're like "take 'em down, man!"

In the episode I saw last night, he and Denny went rifle shooting (do they call that skeet shooting or something?). Denny Crane calls his targest Osama, Saddam and Kerry. Alan calls his "mother" but when he misses he says he only meant to scare her.

I remember that, it was awesome.

Watched a recent episode last night where the Republican Party approaches Denny Crane and asks him to run for president. He goes through interviews and physicals and all kinds of stuff. He did his medical, and while in his hospital robe he's lead onto stage at a Republican meeting where everybody cheers for him, and you realize the whole thing was a big joke on him.

I felt so sorry for him. It's just humiliating, you can imagine... that people would think so little of you to do something like that.

And even though it was shown that Denny had one up on them, and even though it's just a TV show... I think I hate Republicans now.

C'mon, you hated those uppity bastards all along!

No no no, the war, the guns, the anti abortion stuff, the whole "God spoke to me" thing... it all just makes me not overly fond of them, but I respect that they stick to their principals.

Picking on Denny Crane, though. Pure, unadulterated hate is flowin' through me now.

Republicans, Khan. Pretty much the same deal.

This is apparently the last season of Boston Legal.

David E. Kelley has signed on to develop a new lawyer show, based around a father-daughter lawyering team. I hope it's good. I'd be happy if it was a little more serious than Boston Legal, but not quite so much as The Practice. Serious lawyering with a good side of comedy would be nice.

I hope Spader's involved because that dude is good.

I caught 5 minutes of it this week. Spader is getting fat. Still a good actor though.

He was raggind on republicans as usual. I said to myself, "If I want to watch republican bashing, I'll just watch the news."

His schtik in the show does get tired after a while, and I'm saying that even though I agree with him most of the time. If I was on the jury for one of his trials, I'd probably vote the other way because he can come off as a bit pompous.

I think it was the most recent episode where Alan defended his ex girlfriend's husband. I saw the ending coming a mile away, but I don't think everybody would have and it was very well done.

Yes, Spader's packin' on the pounds. He'll never get to be Shatner's size though.

Speaking of Denny Crane, an episode a couple of weeks ago he shot a mugger. When the police came to arrest him for carrying a concealed weapon, they pulled weapons out of every pocket you could imagine. That always cracks me up, to see Denny playing with guns.

I need to youtube Denny Crane. I bet someone has a greatest hits video...

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=idj6sLNJpBY

Denny Crane!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnYvRGnbjSw

I'd vote for him!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijRZfJObqZk

Denny draws down bubba.

That scene was one of the best this season. I loved how Denny and Jerry tried to lose the 'carrying a concealed weapon' case so they could take it to a higher court, but Jerry won it for Denny by accident.

Watch.., wallet....

GUN. Knee. Right foot, left foot.

Denny Crane voted democrat! This most recent episode was kind of lame, though. The mad cow story line was fine, but bringing back Denise and what's'ies-face... Carl? It really had no purpose. And Alan and Denny's conversations are getting more and more boring; Denny's sexual advances towards women have elevated to being just plain embarassing.

Jerry mentioned that they may do a spin-off, which would be nice... but I'd only care if Alan at least is involved. Denny Crane would be good, but I think Shatner's doing his own talk show from December onwards. Jerry is kind of a lame character. He had his charm originally, but I think he's worn out his welcome a bit.

gaboman wrote:

Denny Crane voted democrat!

The bastard. :nono: