65: Boston Legal

Oh, David E. Kelley, you've given us so much, and received, well, so much (Michelle Pfeiffer - not bad at all). But still. I am not proud to say (though not particularly un-proud either) I watched a lot of The Practice (I grew up watching law shows with my parents but could never get into their medical dramas) but I left for college and left the show more or less by the time James Spader entered (my mind was blown by the decisions to basically fire more than half of the main cast in a desperate bid to restart whatever it is that made the Practice successful to begin with - it's as if the Suns didn't just package Marion for Shaq a few years ago, but also traded away Diaw and Bell for Jason Richardson at the exact same time). At that point, I suppose maybe he wasn't so much working on extending the Practice as much as setting up Boston Legal - a complete rebuilding effort.

Boston Legal never was in some ways the success of the Practice - it was never as popular as The Practice was during its short peak, but it was very successful in a narrow way - amongst affluent viewers it was, for whatever reason, one of the most popular shows on television during its run.

I've never seen Boston Legal (I think this list will probably work out to something like half and half on shows I've seen - or maybe a little less than that for shows I haven't), but I once read a New York Times article about the show and so it seems that a major part of the ending of every episode more or less involves James Spader and William Shatner sharing a scotch and ruminating on the law, their lives, and the greater world. I don't know much else about the show, aside from what wiki is telling me, but I can certainly sympathize with that (can you sympathize with good things?). I'm not sure it's enough to make me watch the show, but if it at least makes me appreciate it.

The show of course, most importantly, will likely go down as the one that earned an Emmy for Willian Shatner. An ignominious honor indeed.