(Season 4, Episodes 7-10)

Some weird black and white recreations/flashbacks were going on in these episodes, as well as in episode 4.6, and I hope it’s not a new thing. It felt very Cold Case, only that’s not what this show is about. If no one in the courtroom gets to see these things during trial, what do we need them for?

Six episodes with Richard Bay (Jason Kravits) down; only 25 more to go!

4.7 “Victimless Crimes”

Interesting episode title, considering the two cases of the week were Jimmy defending a woman accused of murdering her rapist, and Bobby defending his cousin, a dentist who bit Lucy on the breast while she was anesthetized. Read the rest of this entry »

(Season 4, Episodes 4-6)

Three types of clients appear on The Practice: the one-off jokesters, the multiple-episode-arc accused, and the repeat customers. A lot of the first group are lightweights, though I suppose that makes sense. The middle category has yielded some interesting television, and I’m sure it will continue to do so — those trials are generally the sensational ones. But for some reason, this show has the most love for the third group of clients. Shows definitely should not live in a bubble, but just how realistic is it that so many people keep on walking back into the offices of Donnell and Associates?

4.4 “Legacy”

This time it was Ray Oz (James Whitmore), fighting his wife Joanne (Bonnie Bartlett) over her plight to be named his conservator. Clearly Ray was worse than he was when first on the show, and clearly Bobby was going to ignore all of the signs. Read the rest of this entry »

(Season 4, Episodes 1-3)

I’m still trying to figure out the timeline of the beginning of this season versus the end of the last. It’s long enough that Lindsay’s out of the hospital, but short enough that she’s still feeling the physical scars of her attack. Considering that the perpetrator is still out there, and that this was a crime that involved an ADA’s best friend, the arrest of a judge, and the death of a known criminal, hopefully they didn’t just wait the four month summer hiatus to pick things up again. Can we trust that the criminal justice system in Boston is more efficient than that?

4.1 “Free Dental”

Only Fonzie (Henry Winkler) could be sympathetic as a dentist with a bug fetish, accused of murdering a patient. Well, maybe not sympathetic, but less than cringe-worthy, so at least a step in the right direction that no one else could have managed. The entire case was a bit odd for a season premiere (and what was with the grape jelly angle?), and I wasn’t quite sure why Bobby AND Lindsay had to be there to help Jimmy. Do they just always come as a pair now? Read the rest of this entry »

A combination of baseball and pre-sweeps repeats made for a bit of an odd week. Repeats don’t mean there aren’t numbers of note however. We had Jay Leno’s first shot against CSI: Miami and NY repeats, and a look at what running repeats on Friday does for FOX. That is, nothing good for Dollhouse season 3. Also interesting this week — The Mentalist finally topped CSI in viewers and the demo, and even a repeat Gibbs appearance is worth 16 million viewers. Read the rest of this entry »

(Season 3, Episodes 21-23)

Season three ended strongly, with some big cases drawing to a close, and some other major issues being left open to be resolved at a later date. And it really is amazing just how many of these clients keep on coming back for more.

3.21 “Infected”

There’s no way that the Rider Strong murder trial was really what had Helen all worked up. On a macro level, it had to be because her ineptitude has allowed countless killers to walk free. From a micro perspective, this was clearly about the nun killer case, and she proved it when she started ranting about the nun in little Gary’s (Strong) closet. And what kind of a judge hands out 20 years for perjury? This case better come back around again. Read the rest of this entry »

(Season 3, Episodes 17-20)

Eugene battles his ex-wife for custody of their son, Helen floats further and further away from sanity (and legal acumen), Jimmy finds a gal, and Donnell and Associates gets hustled onto cases that are too big to be limited to just one episode. And my guess is too big for just one arc, as well. A lot should be coming back to haunt them sometime soon.

3.17 “Target Practice”

I guess it makes sense … after suing big tobacco, dancing with asbestos class action suits, and going after cancer-causing utilities companies, Donnell and Associates represented a plaintiff suing a gun manufacturer because one of their guns was used in the murder of the plaintiff’s daughter. Sympathy should really be barred from the courtroom, at least in a trial where it outweighs fact, legal precedent, or legal superiority. Negligence for manufacturing a product that could potentially be used to perpetrate a crime? Come on. Read the rest of this entry »

(Season 3, Episodes 13-16)

I’m still no Ellenor fan, but she’s at the core of several stories that are beginning to shape The Practice into less of a one-off law procedural, and more of a serial drama. She’s crazy, don’t get me wrong, but she drives a lot of interesting plot. And she adds the unexpectedness of fighting on a show about attorneys, so there’s that.

3.13 “Judge and Jury”

I was looking up the “Judge” in question in this episode on IMDb, and discovered something that put this entire story into perspective: Judge Roberta Kittleson is played by Holland Taylor, better known as Evelyn Harper on Two and a Half Men. I’ve never seen the sitcom, but I can only assume that this revelation supports the under-sexed older woman character that she plays here. Read the rest of this entry »