ARTS & CULTURE
14 Obiter Dicta
TV L Rev
A bi-weekly roundup of legal television
henry limheng › staff writer
as more of a gimmick in a more conventional oddfamily situation sitcom. Anyway, fans of the Grinder
should rejoice as it appears to be doing decent ratingwise and likely to get a second season.
midterm grades
according to the Osgoode Bell Curve
A
B
B
c+
The Good Wife
The Grinder
htgawm
l&o:svu
W
elcome to TV L Rev. A bi-weekly look
at legal television. This edition looks at
how the shows have been done with
nearly a full semester under their belt.
Overall, it’s been a fairly mediocre crop.
Minor spoilers for How to Get Away with Murder, The
Good Wife, Law and Order: SVU, and The Grinder
below.
How To Get Away With Murder
Airs: Thursday, 10pm – CTV; ABC
HTGAWM probably benefits from the curve.
HTGAWM is entertaining in its twist and turns, but
it gets old after the first few episodes. This is the one
show that I literally have to slog through every week.
It’s a strangely constructed show: as the audience,
we know who killed Rebecca. However, we have to
watch the students dummy their way through their
investigation and be completely wrong at every turn.
We are left completely in the dark about the Hapsdal
murder and are in the same position as the show’s
characters. There’s absolutely no sense of legal realism
(do NOT, I repeat do NOT, try to replicate Annalise’s
courtroom behaviour, you’ll be laughed out of the
practice).
But all complaints aside, the show is cheaply compelling. The show keeps you watching so you can
discover what completely outlandish, immoral, double-crossing twist comes next. HTGAWM gets away
with being mostly a terrible show 90% of the time,
but deliciously entertaining for the remaining 10%.
Law and Order: SVU
Airs: Wednesday, 9:00pm – CTV Two;
NBC
Rounding out the bottom of the curve is L&O:SVU.
Don’t get me wrong, SVU had some decent turns this
season with good guest actors (Whoopi Goldberg, the
return of BD Huang) but some episodes were melodramatic and unsatisfying, with the transgender
and police shooting episodes being especially guilty.
While SVU was never the legal heavyweight of the
L&O franchise, opting to focus more on the police
characters, Benson never looked comfortable in the
Lieutenant role and Rollins on-going pregnancy storyline was a distraction from the what the show should
be: a by-the-books formulaic police procedural. SVU
never aspired for greatness, but it’s barely hitting
mediocrity on a good night.
The Grinder
Airs: Tuesday, 8:30pm – CityTV; Fox
The Grinder started with a lot of potential as a legal
comedy show, but has become essentially a siblingrivalry family sitcom. Instead of the jokes revolving around the legal disputes, the comedy is about
the personal relationship between the real lawyer
Stewart and the TV lawyer Dean. Don’t get me wrong,
the show is still funny, and has good energy all-aaround (special shout-out to the young actor playing
Ethan). But instead of owning the premise, it’s played
t humbs up
First ministers finally meeting after almost 7
years
The Good Wife
Airs: Sunday, 9:00pm – Global; CBS
This is another show that benefits from curve-inflation. TGW has essentially hit the reset button, creating a new status quo for the show and largely ignoring
the show-mythology. Alicia and new friend Lucca
have started a new firm that is dealing with out-ofluck clients who are also short on funds. The old firm
of Lockhart-Agos-Lee have largely been kept isolated
to their own wacky and inconsequential storyline.
But so far the best subplot has been Eli’s revenge plot
against Peter and new Chief-of-Staff Ruth.
It’s competent but not high-achieving television.
There are echoes of past greatness: epic dialoguescenes, wacky opposing counsel and jurists, and
Columbo-esque legal turnabouts. TGW has become
stale in its old-age, but has flashes of former glory.
Still hitting well-above any other legal show currently airing, but it feels like it’s on a farewell tour.
Best Legal Moment:
Has to go the Grinder episode 2, where Dean, the
TV lawyer, objects multiple times that a statement
is “hearsay”, only to be chastised for not being anywhere close. An experience familiar to many law students. u