Boston Legal

“Boston Legal” – August 4, 2007

I haven’t watched much TV lately, so “Boston Legal” is a new discovery and a new personal favorite. It’s a fantastical dramedy about the most upscale of upscale attorneys and the glitz and glamour of their station and lifestyle is for men what “Sex in the City” probably amounted to for women. These lawyers are petty, teetering-on-scrupulous perverts who’ll have sex with everything that moves and everything that moves in their fantasy version of Boston (or Los Angeles, or wherever else they have branches) is utterly sexy. Even the perfunctory law portion is as “ripped from the headlines” as “Law and Order”; it’s all distilled into swallowable capsules to make room for everyone’s sexcapades, but there are interesting and exigent issues raised – and ridiculous ones as well. It is that which maintains the writers’ self-respect, I assume, but it works, especially when it challenges the apparent amorality that most of the characters seem to live by.

And what casting – James Spader and William Shatner are enough, but Candice Bergen, too, and such notables in guest spots as Parker Posey prove that even Hollywood actors go gaga over the gilded lifestyle of these rich and famous attorneys. The acting could easily be considered a cheat because they all play on their personas, but that’s only a starting point; Spader and Shatner build onto their personas and make them seem not like personas at all, but real, incredibly neurotic people.

I admit, I’m a Shatner/Star Trek junkie, and his character, Denny Crane, is like Captain Kirk boiled down to his impulses. Both are egoists because of their astounding competence, but Kirk had virtue and restraint. Like Kirk in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – the best of the Shatner movies, one that is great even apart from the franchise – Crane’s ego is being crushed by his advancing years (Shatner is 76). Crane is what the Priceline spokesman thinks he is, or, rather, what he wants us to think he thinks he is. And, whether fictional or not, it makes for a great character. The writers know this, too, and make sure to satisfy one’s need to dig into Denny’s almost-enviable unfettered narcissism; they were even clever enough to make this corrupt lothario a staunch Republican. And, as his protégé, Spader’s deadpan is so good that it belongs in a cemetery. Unless he’s having a rare crisis of conscience or smiling like a serpent because he is so pleased by his own cruel humor, that icy deadness is so complete that his moral dilemmas from tough cases are that much more provocative. He isn’t really dead anyway, it’s just a comfort for him to pretend to be.

I don’t wish to exclude those without personas. Spader’s counterpoint is Mark Valley, whose character, Brad Chase, has the perfect lawyer name but not the patina of sleaze. Valley navigates the contradictions of the character quite well: he’s like the only all-star who’s afraid to take steroids.

I’ve only seen about a half dozen episodes from different seasons, but, from what I’ve watched, I’d rank this show alongside Curb Your Enthusiasm as one of my favorites in terms of current, fictional TV comedy. David E. Kelly’s cynical masterpiece lives by Denny Crane’s personal credo: “live for today.” And – though I’m sure this’ll be funny ten, twenty years down the line – that’s exactly how television comedy should work.