Bill Shatner gets animated – Webisode Clack
William Shatner is not one to rest on his laurels. Since his first roles in Canada (his home), old Bill has constantly worked, whether it be on Star Trek, T.J. Hooker, Boston Legal, various TV and movie roles, books, commercials, and numerous convention appearances. In other words, anything for a buck.
Now that Boston Legal has come to an end, Shatner is working on something else. This time for the good old Interweb. Think Sopranos parody, Hollywood, and YouTube.
Star Trek: Season One Blu-Ray – CliqueClack Preview
is considered by many now to have been way ahead of its time back in 1966 when it first hit the television airwaves. So isn’t it about time that this series come to the new media format of Blu-Ray? And just in time for J.J. Abrams’ reimagining of the franchise, hitting theaters this Friday.
As of Friday, Star Trek: Season One was number on in Amazon’s Blu-Ray category, which bodes well for the future of the series. Everything that’s been accomplished with the Star Trek name started with the first season of the first series, so this set is the ambassador for the new generation who were smart enough to get Blu-Ray players instead of HD-DVD players.
Police Squad – CliqueClack Flashback
Here’s the one word to describe Police Squad: stupid. Not in the way that The Hills is stupid, or Kath & Kim, or The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric is stupid. ABC’s Police Squad, which came and went all too quickly in 1982, was funny stupid. To put it another way…if you were a 13-year-old dweeb who crapped his pants watching Airplane!, Police Squad was so-funny-you-pee-your-pants stupid.
There were a few reasons for this. Created by Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers (Jim and David), Squad had all of the insane elements that made Airplane! the success it was two years before (minus the nudity, that is). It was also an excellent parody of the numerous hard-boiled detective series (most produced by Quinn Martin Productions) that were slowly disappearing as TV went through one of its many transformations. But, the biggest reason for its great stupidity was the show’s star — Leslie Nielsen.
Boston Legal – A final farewell to Chang, Poole & Schmidt
(Season 5, Episodes 12/13 – “Made in China/Last Call” – Series Finale)
A day late maybe, but not a dollar short if Denny Crane has anything to say about it. We could just get married. The gang pulled out almost all the stops on this final run through Crane, Poole & Schmidt. With two episodes back-to-back we got not one, not two, but three balcony scenes (though the third one was a bit of a special occasion).
We did get resolution on the financial problems at the firm, the Sack-Schmidt union and the return visit to the Supreme Court. On a character front, I’m pretty well satisfied with how things are left, but I can’t say the same for the firm. I understand that David E. Kelley likes to get his pot-shots in and he likes to shoot big with his targets, and I don’t fault him the target at all. Still, I can’t say as I enjoyed how things turned out for the firm. And poor Shirley.
Boston Legal – Next week is the finale … BOO!
(Season 5, Episode 11 – “Juiced”) 
It’s all coming to an end so quickly. Why couldn’t ABC have just given us a full season of Boston Legal this season instead of this truncated half-season? Did I really just use the word “season” three times in one sentence? I want a season six! There, said it again.
In one respect, it looks like David E. Kelley is looking to have some fun as he goes out, with Carl enabling Catherine Piper’s craziness by taking a case against the television networks to court for … wait for it … not programming for people over 50. Why, the only show on television brave enough to have stars over 50 is Bo– Well, that would break the fourth wall, wouldn’t it Carl?
Fun stuff indeed, as well as raising a lot of valid points. Why isn’t television that skews older allowed to thrive on television? They do have more money than those of us under 50. They certainly have more money than I do (he said while scraping remnants from the bottom of a can of potato soup). Kelley balanced his direct attack against ABC with the somber revelation that Denny’s Alzheimer’s is no longer something that is coming, but is in fact here. Now.
Boston Legal – Race, poverty, sex, love, marriage, death and Thanksgiving
(Season 5, Episode 10 – “Thanksgiving”)
You know what? Going into this holiday themed episode, I was pretty worried. I wasn’t thrilled with how the episode that took Denny and Alan to Utah turned out, and so when I saw that again we were going to be staying out of the courtroom, I got worried. Can David E. Kelley do what he does so well on this show completely outside of the courtroom?
And then Shirley got mugged by a nine year old black kid in a parking lot, only to find out that this is the new foster child of Edwin Poole. From there things were more fun than they had any right to be, minus a few bizarre outbursts from Shirley, and Kelley still finding a way to have Alan wax poetic about some hot political issue, this one being racism in this post-Obama America. But then halfway through, something remarkable happened and this became one of the most powerful and moving episodes I’d seen in a long time.
Boston Legal – Cheri Oteri is dumb; can you murder a man being executed?
(Season 5, Episode 9 – “Kill, Baby, Kill!”)
Boston Legal loves touching on hot political issues, and we’ve gotten some of our best material from them. That didn’t happen tonight. The ensemble reshuffled the pairings for tonight because, as Denny explained, this is their last season. It’s time to mix things up. So he took off with Carl to Virginia to tackle a murder case with a Boston Legal twist. The defendant shot a man who was in the middle of being executed by the state to end his suffering.
The other storyline put Alan and Shirley together, and even had them sharing a cigar on Denny’s balcony. Cheri Oteri guested in that role as a woman who said she got fired because she voted McCain. The counter argument? She was fired because she was dumb. It was great seeing Oteri on television again; if she’s appeared elsewhere lately it’s not been on shows I watch. She’s still just as manic and spunky as many of her Saturday Night Live characters and is a lot of fun to watch.
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