Alan Shore and Denny Crane lead a brigade of high-priced civil litigators in an upscale Boston law firm in a series focusing on the professional and personal lives of brilliant but often emotionally challenged attorneys. A spin-off of long-running series The Practice.
Rated 5.0 / 5 from 1 log on Katalog
A comfort watch - I’ve been drip feeding myself episodes with uncharacteristic discipline, little gifts for myself after long days. It’s perfect. It’s silly, clever, both topical and timeless. Granted, it goes a bit beyond current states of American politics, shows a world of Bush and Chainy and McCain, not Trump, Noam and Vance. It’s a bit nostalgic in that sense—the ideal republican and ideal democrat of the time, best friends, utterly devoted to each other, till the end. It’s nice to imagine this could be possible. Past that—when I think of US intellectuals, I think of Alan Shore, his sophisticated diction, his wit and, yes, arrogance born from privilege. We don’t actually know much about him, past the crumbs they give us, and a lot of it is unreliable. I like that, too. It’s a Helen of Troy thing—dont describe the beauty, tell us shes beautiful, and everyone will fill in the blanks. We can imagine an upper middle class upbringing, whatever this means for us. I imagine a single mother, successful, accomplished, beautiful, emotionally distant. Ditto for Denny Crane - we know bits and pieces here and there, but you’d really think they’d give us more considering the five seasons of the show where Alan and Denny are the main stars. But, no, with Denny even more is obscured by the cloud of Alzheimer’s. Was he in the marines? He doesn’t know, so we don’t know. Probably. At times, I felt honestly like I was watching James Kirk who retired and became a lawyer on Earth. It’s just great. James Spader is phenomenal in it, Shatner is as well. The supporting cast are, on average, very good. Betty White comes to mind. Marissa Coughlan as Melissa Hughes. Plenty of others. I didn’t particularly care for the Handsome White Male Straight Man archetype they seem to need, presumably to give contrast to Alan, but they were okay enough. Livingston made sure to code at least Brad (lol Brad) as so awkward and maladjusted, you almost feel sympathy for him. Idk, 15/10, no notes.
