What I'm Watching: Boston Legal -- Season Two

So as earlier mentioned, I have the Multistate Professional Responsibility Exam coming up a week from today (it's a test, with the Bar Exam, which must be passed before one can practice law) and while I've done a bit of studying for the exam over my Spring Break from law school, I've spent more time watching my DVDs of the second season of Boston Legal. Television shows based on the practice of law are not new. David E. Kelley, creator of Boston Legal, has had some of the best, including The Practice, from which Boston Legal spun off from. The Practice is supposed to be released on DVD this year and the first two seasons of Boston Legal are already available. Other than Shark airing on CBS (Thursday night @ 10:00), and the various formations of Law & Order, which aren't so much legal shows as they are criminal procedurals with some law thrown in (depending on the version), Boston Legal is one of the only legal shows left on TV, but it is a great, great show. It's both funny and topical, serious and entertaining, James Spader's Alan Shore and William Shatner's Denny Crane are some of the best characters on television. Sure, sometimes the storylines are outrageous, but as I currently watch an episode from November 1, 2005, as Spader's character rants against the Iraq war, the show's old episode are as relevant today as they were when they first aired.

Plus, the characters break so many ethical rules on the show, it is great review for the upcoming MPRE, as the lawyers at Crane, Poole, and Schmidt likely would have been disbarred had this been reality TV instead of a television drama. In any case, well worth checking out the DVDs, or failing that, tuning in Tuesday's at 10:00 on ABC.