Boston Legal ongoing thread (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

Sarah Carter was the blonde lesbian. She's on Smallville tomorrow night.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Oh yeah, that's right, she played the girl on Smallville that could teleport herself and was in love with Clark, now I remember her!

Thanks, Patrick.

 

[Patrick Sun]

2/13/05

So DEK takes on the meat industry and Mad Cow Disease.

"Nanzy Panzy"

"Denny...Denny...Denny...Crane"

Are the wheels coming off on the Alan-mobile? I thought it was hilarious that Alan would pay someone else to retaliate in a barfight situation. Of course, DEK tries to sneak in his views of the use of the military with this subplot, but again, still a bit too hamfisted.

What was up with Alan and Brad? That felt so out of character for Alan.

When Alan was mimicking Paul's "Crane, Poole and Schmidt" pronouncements, that was good for some laughs, especially when Paul goes ballistic over it.

 

[Chuck_W]

DEK is losing me on this show....it was fun at first but I'm getting tired of all the little political messages.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

It was a good episode, I freaking LOVED the opening scene in the bar, one of the funniest things i've seen on tv in a awhile.

Alan's a realist, he's intelligent enough to know that he was out-gunned with that rather large guy and so he did the next logical thing, he paid off another large guy to act on his behalf, makes sense to me.

Was is cowardly of him? Who's got the energy for that kind of crap in today's world, all Alan needed to know was that the other guy got tagged, and that he was the facilitator of it.

Brilliant stuff.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

It's official, next to Monk, Alan Shore is my favorite charactor on television right now.

I don't know who is responsable for writing James Spader's dialogue, but he certaintly has my admiration. I am continually both amused and amazed at Spader's whole demenor and speech patteren, cool, smug and like a rock with no visible weakness. Last week when he got punched in the mouth, the man was too cool to even bleed!

I'm getting a bit concerned about William Shatner, he looked a little extra bloated in this episode and he just didn't look well to me, I don't know, I may be seeing something that isn't their.

The one thing I DO know, is that black lawer is so incredibly sexy it hurts!

 

[Patrick Sun]

"Do you want to see ME naked?" Only Denny Crane could get away with that line.

Glad to see Denny put a whuppin' on Donnie.

Again, DEK rails against the current climate with the "torture *might* be okay in certain 'the ends justify the means' situations" storyline.

 

[todd s]

"So Mitch"
"It's Michael"
"Whats my name?"
"Denny Crane"
"Whats his name?"
"Donnie Crane"
"Whats my name?!?"
"Denny Crane!"



Funny stuff.

ps-I am also getting tired of the constant political commentary. Once and a while is fine. But, not weekly.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

The political commentary was a more tolerable for me today because it was bi-partisan. Torture in extreme circumstances is something both liberals and conservatives struggle with. People need to think about it and determine what their principles really are on the issue. I suspect that for most people, it isn't absolute, but neither are most clear exactly where the line is. DEK made that point by bringing Alan Dershowicz into the discussion that it is bi-partisan.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

The whole point of BL is the political and cultural point-counterpoint discussion. The rest is a side show. I like the careful digs at the state of our country and the world. If you don't care for it, watch Law and Order or something else that dilutes its politics, but this is what BL is all about.

Dan

 

[Patrick Sun]

3/13/05

I was entranced by Kerry Washington's upper lip.

Denny counting backwards in the background was hilarious.

Good to see Chi McBride get a little love from DEK.

 

[pitchman]

It is nice to see Boston Public's principal Harper (McBride) again.

I don't care for the way that Kelley handles the Denny Crane character in this episode, though. Heretofore, Crane has been presented as strange, quirky and sometimes even a bit dopey, but, by the end of each show, something happens to demonstrate that he is in control and that there is a method to his madness. This go-round, Kelley scripts him as flat-out DUMB and completely out of touch. Although it was a funny bit visually, even on his worst day, I can't imagine that Denny Crane would sit quietly in a court of law and count backwards from 100 simply because a colleague asks him to. I dunno. It didn't work for me... Perhaps Kelley is beginning to lay the groundwork for some sort of Denny Crane fireworks to come?

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

I agree Gary. Slight slip-up in the writing.

 

[Henry Gale]

As a 30+ year resident of Texas I found tonight's main subject matter to be...devastating.
If I was face to face with David E. Kelley right now I'd shake his hand and give him a big hug.
Alan did not win his case and there were no cigars smoked on Denny's balcony.
Great episode.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Yeah, tonight's episode would be the one I'd send in for Emmy considering if I were Spader. Solid work on the situation in Texas that got lit up in this episode.

On the home front, the move to boot out Denny is now in full swing.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

I think tonight was the first night I accepted Boston Legal as a comedy.

So, did the judge get hooked up?

Home of the New England Patriots, who can whoop any football team you have in the state of Texas? Alan Shore's character certainly isn't above ruffling feathers, but usually that involves being true to himself and/or shining the light of relevant honesty on someone who'd rather not. That statement was pointless with a man's life on the line. Just DEK on his personal pulpit again.

 

[Marty M]

This is what I have liked about his shows and I espacially like last night's episode and its indictment on Texas's death penalty.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

There's certainly two schools of thought on the issue. Some say that to be a true voice, a writer should write what he feels. DEK feels the death penalty is wrong, so he gave an incredibly slanted statement about it.

I happen to like balance. I'm against the death penalty, but IMO, if you're going to discuss the death penalty, have a discussion that at least fairly lays out both sides of the issue before resting into your personal preference.

What DEK depicted is that Texas is using the death penalty as their way of killing off the weak and/or monitories. I don't visit Texas often and I don't live there, so I won't make any broad statements about the citizens there. However, at some point I wasn't sure if DEK was picking on death penalty proponents or Texas? I ask because there are people who support the death penalty right in Boston.

I guess it would have been more difficult to eliminate the south/racial element and just focus on if we should have a death penalty and if so, when.

Bah.

 

[Patrick Sun]

DEK was picking on the systematic use of the death penalty that Texas has set up for its ultra-speedy use in delivering capital punishment. Texas, as depicted by DEK in this episode, has pretty much cut out a lot of the red tape in seeing that the death penalty be administered as swiftly as possible.

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

And of course they've done this because they're a backwater state with more in common with a Middle Easter country than the rest of the US, right?

I'm from the North. That said, Pick on Texas if you want to, but as I said, I'm in favor of balance. Instead of making them out to be some backwater caricatures that the rest of the country should slap down, how about using some of his famed intelligence to show us why they've done what they've done, and why he disagrees.

How long should it take to put someone to death? How many appeals should they be allowed? Texas has simply come to a different conclusion than other places. Why is their conclusion inherently wrong? They are saving their tax payers money and giving families of the victims swifter "justice".

If we believe in the death penalty, we should carry it out as quickly as is accurately possible for the reasons I stated above. The process for assuring we do the right people in the least amount of time is subjective, and thus is subject to debate.

Why house someone for 10 years at $40k/year if you can house him for 1 year and get the same success ratio (accurate versus inaccurate executions)? Why make people wait 10 years if we consider an execution justice?

DEK's sermon disguised as a TV show touched on none of this, and so I think it was weak. It was nothing more than fluff TV. A Michael Moore op-ed piece masquerading as a dramedy.

Again, I don't believe in the death penalty. I feel the cost to house a criminal for life is the cost a civilized society should bear. I don't think you underline preying on others is wrong by executing people. Instead, I believe it says that if you feel justified, killing is OK. You just have to be in power. Then it's OK. Or don't get caught. When we execute people, they are not an imminent threat. I don't support that.