The writers and producers of this show probably thought they were creating an edgy, glamorous and sexy, if somewhat fanciful, legal drama. They have in fact created the best unintentional comedy I've seen in a long time. I've watched some preposterous twaddle on TV in my time, but this was so outstandingly, hilariously stupid that it deserves its own drinking game.
I guess it was - shall we say, "inspired"? - by that '70s classic "The Paper Chase" ... hotshot law students vie to win the esteem of the brilliant but cranky law professor ... but now, instead of pudgy, white, jowly John Houseman, Professor Cranky-Pants is a feisty, ultra-glamorous African-American lady with Naomi Campbell makeup and a skin-tight red leather jerkin ...
This show has SO many things wrong with it that it must surely become a cult comedy hit among the legal fraternity. For example ... Prof. Cranky-Pants is also a practising attorney who alternates, apparently day-by-day, lecturing in law *and* defending high-profile criminal cases .. 'cos, like, you would *totally* have time to do that ... and, naturally, she lectures publicly, in precise detail, on the actual cases she'll be defending THE NEXT DAY ... and because she's so brilliant and mean, she pits her students against each other to come up with the best possible defence for the case she's running tomorrow - and she'll use theirs if its better .. what? come on, I bet that really happens!
And of course, in this liberated and uncensored era, we see all the modern hi-jinks that glamorous yuppie students and their teachers get up to in order to .. ahem ... "get ahead" in the law game ... like the cute male student who turns out to be gay, who manages to get vital info about the case by going to the gay bar frequented by the gay nerds from the IT Department of the company where the defendant worked ... he chats up the bookish (i.e. wears glasses) but cute gay Asian-American IT nerd, who of course looks shiftily at his feet as he admits that he's been instructed by the firm's legal dep't not to discuss the case. It (almost) goes without saying that IT Nerd's steely resolve melts instantly when Sexy Gay Law Student uses his secret weapon - he turns his attentions away from him for a moment and makes eyes at another guy ... seconds later, after the obligatory "Don't tell anyone I told you" disclaimer, they're ripping each other's shirts off and slamming onto the bed, while IT Nerd sings like a canary ...
... later we meet the equally sexy female student who "impresses" Prof. Cranky-Pants by telling her how she used false pretences to illegally obtain totally inadmissible evidence about a witness' medical condition ... instant Credit, of course!
... later, in the obligatory "feet of clay" interlude, we follow Model-cute African- American Underdog Student (actually played by an English kid who was in Harry Potter) as he drops over to Prof. Cranky-Pants' (totally unlocked) office, late at night, to ask a sticky legal question - as you do ... but something's amiss ... we hear some grunting sounds - so of course he barges into the inner office where - naturally - he stumbles onto Prof. Cranky-Pants giving a head-job to an enormous, heavily-muscled, shirtless black man ... what? I'm sure that happens at Harvard Law School all the time!
We decided to press "stop" at the point where the students meet the defendant ... but she doesn't come to the large, comfortable, well-equipped lecture hall - oh no ... that would be too easy, and not "legal" enough. No, the ENTIRE CLASS has to meet her in Prof. Cranky-Pants' sumptuous, wood-panelled, book-lined office, and they cram in there, in a not-at-all-stagey-and-awkward manner, lined up the staircase, and everything ... taking notes, on notepads - as you do in 2014 - nodding sagely, or looking at each other quizzically and shaking their heads, while cute, tearful, blonde Ms Defendant gives her sob-wracked account of the case.
I know TV is just a business, but it never ceases to amaze me how so many people are willing to be involved with such sloppily-conceived, cliché-infested, badly written, poorly acted CRAP, and how network execs seem endlessly willing to give huge amounts of money to keep producing crud like this ... and it's doubly galling when one considers the many well-written, well-acted, well-produced and brilliantly original programming, like 'Firefly', 'The Fades' and 'Outcasts', that get cancelled after one series.
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