xoxoxo e: harrys law

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

harry's law finale

Article first published as Television Review: Harry's Law - Finale on Blogcritics.

After 12 episodes I still really like Harry's Law. The main characters are great and have a good rapport with each other. The stories are wacky and outlandish sometimes, but they work in combination with Kathy Bates's indomitable will and general state of irritation. She's a curmudgeon with a grudgingly warming heart and such a pleasure to watch.

Lawyer shows are always an either/or proposition — either the protagonists will win or lose the case of the week. There's no way around the cliché structure since the early days of Perry Mason. Harry's Law has decided to mess with that formula by always winning, so the show became more about the social interaction of the characters than the issue-of-the-week. When, on the rare occasion of Harry's firm losing a case, she and her lawyers still won't take no for an answer and vow to keep pursuing their case in a higher court.

Harry the character makes quite an impression on everyone she meets — not always a positive one, but still quite an impact. Especially nice about this show is that many of the quirky personalities she runs up against don't do just a one episode walk-on, but tend to drift in and out of her life and the show. Recurring characters like Tommy Jefferson (Christopher McDonald), a high-profile huckster who is attracted to Harry's integrity like a moth to flame; Kim Mendelsohn (Camryn Mannheim), a beyond-tough assistant district attorney who can screw over the firm's defense in a few short words and then ask the lawyers if they want to hang out after the trial; Josh Peyton (Paul McCrane) the district attorney who started the season off aggressive and obnoxious and ended in, well, the same way, but also vulnerable and strangely likable; Damien Winslow (Johnny Ray Gill) a street hustler who runs a protection racket and ends up being Harry's bodyguard and neighborhood advisor.

The best part about the finale was the last scene. Like a scene in a play, Kathy Bates and Nate Corddry, the two star players, sat quietly discussing the day as the lights faded to black. It was very theatrical, a nod to Bates's Broadway acting career and the general theatricality of the show. And it was also nice. These people are likable. And I'm looking forward to checking in on them again and hope that Kathy Bates and Co. are back for a new season of dramatic lawyering and shoe selling.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Kathy Bates investigates

Article first published as TV Review: Harry's Law with Kathy Bates on Blogcritics.

I hate lawyer shows. I used to watch Law and Order when Jerry Orbach was on it, but never liked the law part of the show, especially Sam Waterston's annoying DA. I don't like arguing for the sake of it—or I should say, watching others do that. I really don't like all the little catches and loopholes in the law that could affect someone in a good or bad way, depending who's writing this week's script. Which is why Harry's Law appeals to me. Many are saying its target audience are Golden Girls from Bates's generation who miss Murder She Wrote. I'm sure the show will appeal to them, but I used to like watching Jessica Fletcher solve her biggest-guest-star-dunits with my grandmother, too. How can you not like Cabot Cove, the murder capital of the world? It was Angela Lansbury, for Pete's sake.

And that's exactly why it's fun watching Harry's Law—Kathy Bates. She's having a blast being ornery, saying all the curse words that her time slot will allow (asshole ... asshole). And she's Kathy Bates. It's refreshing to not see yet another show headed by an unbelievably thin and perky cast. There is the token cast cutie in Brittany Snow, who thankfully also seems to have a sense of humor. Nate Corddry is a great foil and sidekick. The show is supposed to be set in Cincinnati. I've never visited Cincinnati, but I've lived in New York and D.C. and I'm sure the bad part of town doesn't look like the block where Harry's Law and Fine Shoes is located, but who cares; we know it's a backlot. That's not the point. It's a chance to watch Kathy Bates kick some smarmy lawyer butt and get the wind taken out of her sails at the same time, with one client wackier than the next. But like I said, it's really not about the law, it's about the personalities.

What this show really reminds me of are two great British shows that I used to watch, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, starring Patricia Routledge and Kingdom, starring Stephen Fry. Maybe David E. Kelley has been watching BBC America reruns lately. Hetty Wainthropp was ostensibly a detective show, but no one, no matter how guilty, ever went to jail. They may have gotten a stern lecture or a "tut-tut" and an expressive roll of the eyes from Hetty, but that was about the extent of it. So far Bates's Harry is 2-for-2 getting her criminals off-the-hook, too. Hetty was a fun hour watching Routledge and a very young Dominic Monaghan team up to solve crimes in Northern England. Kingdom starred Fry as a small-town lawyer surrounded by a cast of extremely eccentric but lovable characters, including the wonderful Tony Slattery, Hermione Norris and Celia Imrie.

Harry's Law is so much more entertaining than the show that precedes it, the hyped but horrible The Cape. I'm so sorry, James Frain. I love you but I don't know if I can sit though another episode with such heavy-handed music and dialogue like, "Either you wear the cape or the cape wears you." Yikes. Or, "Every cop cell in my body tells me that guy's bad news." Seriously, a killer cape that can behead department store dummies? I just hear The Incredibles' Edna Mode's voice in my head on an endless loop, "No capes!"

Instead of suffering through The Cape again maybe I'll check out Kingdom on Hulu and Hetty on YouTube as the perfect openers to Harry's Law. And Kathy Bates and her show can ride on the cape-tails of a comic, but deliver the real comedy.