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Are The Critics In Contempt Of Stephen Bochco’s New TNT Legal Drama RAISING THE BAR??
I am – Hercules!!
An ensemble legal drama from longtime public defender and “Indefensible” author David Feige, “Raising The Bar” looks at how justice is dispensed in The Bronx’s courtrooms. It begins as “L.A. Law” did so long ago, with a lawyer dropping dead on the job and the chain of events his passing sets off. “L.A. Law” creator Stephen Bochco serves as showrunner, but his name is not on the first teleplay.
The series’ large-ish cast includes Melissa Sagemiller (“Sleeper Cell,” “Mr. Woodcock”), Mark-Paul Gosselaar (“NYPD Blue”), Jane Kaczmarek (“Malcolm in the Middle”), J. August Richards (“Angel,” “Conviction”), Gloria Reuben (“ER,” “The Agency”) and Jonathan Scarfe (“ER”).
As one reads the reviews, one pictures many a critic looking at many a wristwatch.
TV Guide gives it a 3 (out of 10) and says:
… shockingly ordinary … A whiff of mildew permeates this earnest ensemble piece …
Entertainment Weekly gives it a “C-plus” and says:
… Charge this one with trying too hard.
USA Today says:
… so slow to start, it might as well be in reverse. The first episode is, simply, flat-out terrible. Which is why, if you're a Bochco fan, you'd be wise to wait for the fourth episode, when Bar moves to mediocre. …
The Wall Street Journal says:
… Despite its updated gloss and cast, in fact, "Raising the Bar" doesn't really break a mold.
The Associated Press says:
… don't be misled. "Raising the Bar" is no breakthrough. … it's dismaying that a series from the man who helped forge TV's future feels like a relic from his past.
The Wall Street Journal says:
… Despite its updated gloss and cast, in fact, "Raising the Bar" doesn't really break a mold. …
The New York Times says:
… liking your job doesn’t necessarily mean you will be good at dramatizing it. … Jerry himself, with his untucked shirts and ties knotted at his rib cage, is such a drag, such a dopey vessel for the show’s naïve rants about the primacy of truth, that I was begging for someone to send him away and submit him to the torture of taking the bar exam in the 49 remaining states.
The Los Angeles Times says:
… an underwhelming new legal drama … It's not all bad, but nothing in it argues that it needed to be made other than to give the people who made it something to do. It's a mediocre misfire in which the odd good parts beg for a better home.
The Chicago Tribune says:
… None of these thinly drawn characters is compelling, and the entire production feels dated and melodramatic. …
The Washington Post says:
… entertaining in a facile way and populated with characters who quickly establish moderately engaging identities. Dull, it's not. …
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer says:
… as pedestrian as cable dramas come. Executive producer Steven Bochco seems stuck in his old ways, like a dog who refuses to learn new tricks. …
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
… Though tonight's pilot barely works on any level and tries so hard to please and be edgy that it may end up alienating people, future episodes do get better. Not better enough to be gold standards in the genre - we haven't seen a good legal drama in some time, from Bochco or others - but the series fits squarely within the parameters of a TNT series. Meaning it's good, not great. Or at least it gets good enough for TNT, eventually. …
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:
… as pedestrian as cable dramas come. … feels like an attempt at a '90s-era edgy prime-time drama whose time has past. …
The Boston Herald says:
… The cast is weighted with familiar faces, but even its collective talent can’t overcome the shoddy scripts. … Never has the justice system looked so silly. …
The Boston Globe says:
… More like lowering the bar. … hackneyed legal drama … Who ever thought Bochco would be serving up stale David E. Kelley? …
Variety says:
… doesn't so much raise the bar on courtroom series as gently limbo under it. … The premise of ambitious but idealistic young legal eagles battling blind and uncaring justice certainly dovetails with TNT's preference for meat-and-potatoes dramas. It's just that the well-trodden formula can't help but feel a trifle musty. … there's no escaping a nagging sense that the series springs from a well-worn playbook …
The Hollywood Reporter says:
… a solid legal drama with several appealing characters and above-average dialogue. …
10 p.m. Monday. TNT.
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...but if SAVING GRACE can get a second season, so can this.
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really?
That's what he's known for? -
Who would have guessed?
Seriously, are there any other professions other than Law or Medicine? I don't see a show about Accountants or Marine Biologists... -
There have been so many that they are cliches, nothing else can be done differently with them. When I saw the commercials for Raising The Bar, I could tell that it's the same as the multitude of other lawyer shows that have come and gone. For example, the usual judge and lawyer that butt heads.
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Well, I saw half of it, I just couldn't stand any more. It's like something that might have been popular in the 80s.
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Remember when Bochco was a genius?
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Is his legal knowledge the Flowers-for-Algernon variety aquired via a quasi-faustian pact with the senior partners? Or is it the normal kind?
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Mark-Paul Gosselaar is indeed Zack Morris as in Saved by the Bell. But yea, having seen the pilot, this show is pretty plain.
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Not sure if it was because of the show, or because I am so effing bored with courtroom dramas now. I think Damages was my limit... after that, I just kinda lost my taste for it.
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Who you callin' formulaic?!?
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Is how are we suppose to take Zack Morris: Attorney at Law! seriously when he looks the lead singer of a hair metal cover band. -
That would be a ratings blockbuster.
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Really? Sillier than Ally McBeal?
I have my doubts anything could make the justice system look THAT retarded, ever again.
Excluding real life of course. -
I know every network likes to trumpet their own horn--it's called advertising--but TNT ramps it up to new levels. Between the popular but un-provocative "The Closer" and the generally ignored "Saving Grace", they act like people are starting new religions over their middle of the road, easier than going to the rental store, programming or something. I can't wait to hear their new campaigns this fall: "From the network that gave you something to live for and brought meaning into your otherwise empty lives with the Closer and Saving Grace, TNT brings you the greatest television show ever made by anyone, anywhere, in history: Raising the Bar. Critics are raving: 'shockingly … A whiff of [incredible, godly, genius] permeates this earnest ensemble piece' -TV Guide "The Wall Street Journal raves about it's 'updated gloss and cast.' And the New York Times heralds it's 'rants about the primacy of truth.' The Los Angeles Times gushes: 'It's not all bad' and '. . . it needed to be made.' The Chicago Tribune effuses: 'these thinly drawn characters is compelling', and the San Francisco Chronicle screams in joy: 'fits squarely within the parameters of a TNT series.' Variety proclaims triumphantly it 'springs from a well-worn playbook' and the Hollywood Reporter tearfully acclaims its 'above-average dialogue.' Coming this fall, TNT gives you a show better than oral sex, ice cream or Jesus: Raising the Bar."
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The moment I heard that this show was called "Raising The Bar" my eyes rolled into the back of my head. When the name of a show debuting in 2008 is a lame pun, I automatically assume it's going to fail.
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That was awesome! Hilarious!
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Levitating the cafe?Yes, Mark Paul is best known for NYPD Blue, at least by people who have never seen the kid's show he made as a child actor. And for some Jane Kaszmarek is best known for her sting on Hill Street Blues.Of course for fans of Bochco and legal dramas, we recall that Steven Bochco already tried channeling David E. Kelley once before with the short lived Kim Delaney vehcle "Philly". The fact is, every scene from the promos for this show that have been running on TNT make it look exactly like a recycled version of the Practice - in subject matter if not cast. "Sometimes we defend the guilty. sometimes the innocent are convicted and the guilty get away." Yawn, welcome to America.Yes, I plan to watch it anyway. But it does seem like TNT looked at the kind of shows they were buying in syndication and decided to make their own.Though maybe it it has Saving Grace's level of raw language and nudity it can get some of that old NYPD Blue "R-rated television" buzz going.
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Its got Lem in it and a naked Holly Hunter.
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looks like it stinks to high heaven
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Trust me, it makes the justice system look much more petty than Ally McBeal.
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I saw the pilot over the summer and I can honestly say I will never watch another episode. Leverage was good though - you should watch that. And I call Schnanigans on the TB'er slagging off Saving Grace - it's pretty good really. I did really like that ending with Earl standing over Lem's brothers coffin - surprising subtle piece of storytelling that.
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that the people who like Cold Case will probably like this
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it has a naked memaw Holly Hunter in it
That scares the horses and anything that scares the horses, isn't for viewing -
Mark Paul Gosselaar here. Go fuck yourselves.
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Well, yes.
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you look very feminine in this
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you made my day. thank you.
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I've seen a million of them. I can't imagine anything that would make me want to watch another one. No wonder television ratings keep going down. Find a new premise people!
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With that guy from Six Feet Under? I hear it's good...
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after Lost and The Venture Brothers.If seeing a naked fifty year old woman cares your horse, maybe you shouldn't be watching TV with your horse in the first place.And actually, in that nude bareback riding scene from the season finale, the horse didn't look all that scared.Best line on TV of the entire post-strike season: "Shit, Rhetta, you've been touched by an angel."
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Also espionage, action adventure and horror, plus science fiction and space opera. Also animation and sit-coms, sketch comedy and evening soap operas. And talk shows. It's the reality shows and game shows I don't care for.But cop, legal and medical dramas? I like Bones, House, Boston Legal. I like Numb3rs and Grey's Anatomy. I like Criminal Minds. I'm not enthused about but can, if bored, watch CSI: NY and Private Practice. I enjoyed Shark and The Practice and, yes, Ally McBeal. During the period after I got out of the hospital ans was taking vicodin I even watched the whole runs of Diagnosis Murder and Matlock.These popular genres are the basic building block elements that television if made of. I don't have a problem with that. The question isn't whether the genres are cliched but whether the writers can twist any new juice from the familiar husks.I'm 55.5 years old. I could have stopped watching private eye shows with The Outsider and lawyer shows with Judd For The Defense and spy shows with... well name any '60s espionage show, though I think The Prisoner was the capper.there are books I'll never read and classic albums I'll never hear, but I continue to watch television because it's a lifelong habit and it's easy and convenient.And the following mantra should be posted as a caveat at the top of every AICH talk-back: if you don't like it, don't watch it.
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twenty years ago with Wolfe's amazing Bonfire of the Vanities. I can't think of a better rundown of our fucked justice system than the early courtroom scenes in that brilliant book.
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I applaud you. I agree with absolutely everything you said. Reality television is an ugly boil on the ass of society and would watch ANY other dramatic show, before I watched a "reality" show.
That said, "Raising the Bar" sucked ass. -
..that's because I'm gay.
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I'm going on the record with you too, gridbug. Whenever I see her, I can't help but think, "wicked handjob."
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Laughably bad. My wife and I agree: one and done.
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Based on the fact that my wife is a Cold Case fan and thought it sucked.
And yes, one data point is enough to draw a conclusion. -
That was standard early 1980's stuff. They took all the greatest hits from shows created by "The Bochco Empire" (this includes David E. Kelly and William Finklestein), and cut and pasted a new show. Rich guy slumming (The Practice), crazy judge (Picket Fences), judge being female and chasing younger men (Ally McBeal and The Practice), criminal confessing to everything in 10 seconds (NYPD Blue), office romances (Civil Wars and McBeal and L.A. Law, and Boston Legal and The Practice..), finding out in the last scene the 2 antagonist are sleeping together goes all the way back to Hill Street Blues with the Captain and the Public Defender.And did I mention the director sucked?-----later-----m
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since this and cold case are both extremely unrealistic depictions of their professions, that the fans of one would like the other
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Sep 05, 2008 8:29:09 PM CDT
Show misses the point of recycling if they're not recycling the
by leftfoot
While your bored mind is wandering watching this bland stuff you mentally write better dialogue....
"You want to hit a lawyer?"
"All day long. And I'm starting to get the urge to punch out talentless child actors that are still stinking up shows."
And 'Saving Grace' is fucking brilliant. Original and unpredictable. It is unlike anything on TV.
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