Verdict
Summary
Plot: A Law & Order spin-off that focuses on the personal lives and cases of New York City lawyers. Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March, Mr. and Mrs. Smith), previously seen on L&O: SVU, is now bureau chief of a Manhattan law firm with her deputy and occasional love interest, Jim Steele (Anson Mount, City by the Sea), who can be both stubborn and admirable at times.
Cabot and Steele will supervise younger assistant district attorneys while they take on tough cases that test their limited courtroom experience. The team of ADAs include: the womanizing gambler Brian (Eric Balfour, 24), the promising and striving Billy (J. August Richards, The Temptations), the haunted Nick (Jordan Bridges, Frequency), the traumatized Christina (Julianne Nicholson, Tully), the risk-taking Jessica (sexy newcomer Milena Govich). By being all in over their heads, they’ll have to push to prove themselves in the world’s biggest city and in most tumultuous courtrooms.
Review: Dick Wolf’s long-term franchise has often had many fascinating crime procedure detailing lead by lovely editing, emotional atmosphere and themes, intense music and mystery, and spellbinding plot reveals. The original Law & Order detailed many aspects, while SVU analyzed sex crimes and Criminal Intent focused on the criminal mind while skipping the courtroom scenes altogether. Wolf had previously conjured up the spin-off Trial by Jury, which had failed to find an audience despite detailing an entire trial prep and having character from the first two original shows appear. Despite SVU’s Cabot returning, after being portrayed as being under witness protection, and using some of the same style and transition credits, this show strangely didn’t even use the Law & Order name in its complete marketing title.
Nonetheless, this is a rather addicting spin-off that deserved far more accolades, let alone attention for its rather solid cast and reasonable handling of all the characters’ storylines and various trials. Some of the indie music used for end montages really puts the viewer in the characters’ shoes especially after being in sometimes rather stressful trials that backfire or go far worse than intended. I was seeing some reviewers and fan comments that this show was no better than the various doctor soap operas, but that’s honestly flat-out offensive as Wolf’s crime shows are hailing from both early ‘60s trial shows and the various David E. Kelley and Steven Bochco dramas, the latter of whom Wolf even worked for on Hill Street Blues.
The show does a solid job of slowly building or implying everyone’s various issues then changes its focus each episodes so that none of the situations seem redundant, repetitive or too drawn out. Christina having to learn fast while on the job in order to sustain her promising career and hoping to make her mentor, Mike (Elias Koteas, Traffic), who was killed in front of her one fateful day very proud that she’s finally utilizing her teachings. Nick is similarly morbidly fascinating to follow around as he comes off as the most promising of the rookies yet also is getting over his fear of walking home late at night in the city after being mugged one horrid night. Brian proves to be a flawed but still rather bright character who always knows if there’s enough material worthy of a winnable trial while Billy also has various success at thinking outside the box while getting other questionable job offers. Jessica isn’t focused on as much but she’s not just eye candy and when she figures into one of the many stories, she does reasonably well.
To top it all off rather well, the series even includes a beyond intense hostage negotiation in its two-part conclusion involving a courtroom takeover with our very protagonists in the middle of the chaos. It also helps that we have the scene-stealing hostage negotiator Tony (James McDaniel, NYPD Blue) feature as a cool character. While the show may seem familiar and not much different than previous attorney shows, it goes beyond showing co-workers acting unprofessional or casually sleeping with one another by utilizing some rather heated cases and having plenty of obstacles that scar the characters overtime to keep it from being yet another talky melodrama. It’s truly is a shame this show isn’t better known but all I can do is highly recommend to all crime show and L&O die-hard fans.