I just read your review of ...
Question: I just read your
review of
Canterbury's Law . After reading a couple of other reviews online, I was actually surprised to see your rather positive take on it. Granted, you don't deal much with
Shark in your column, but from what I've seen,
Law is a complete rip-off. A tough and cutthroat attorney doing the extraordinary to win the cases while taunting her opponents, including the DA, with a messy personal life, etc.? As a fan of James Woods and
Shark , I actually cringed when I saw the creators call
Canterbury's Law "unlike anything on TV." I beg to differ. Not only is it comparable to at least two other TV shows (
House and
Shark ), but if you strip it of all the Gregory House and Sebastian Stark attitude, it is nothing but a legal drama the likes of which we've seen many times before. While I absolutely loved the "think
House in a courtroom" idea for
Shark (even if those shows have major differences), I thought
Damages proved to be "something different," more so than
Canterbury's Law . The way I see it, we already have the tough-talking, morals-challenged cutthroat bitch (
Damages ) and the tough-talking, morals-challenged cutthroat jerk (
Shark ) in the courtroom on TV, so where does
Canterbury's Law fit, if not as another wannabe? Do you think this affects
Shark 's renewal chances for next season?
Answer: Where to begin, except to say that mine was hardly the only good review this show got. I don't see how the fate of
Canterbury's Law will have any impact on
Shark's future, and while I did like
Canterbury's Law and Julianna Margulies a great deal, I would never go to bat for it on behalf of its originality. I don't have the luxury of space in my reviews to list every show it may resemble, but I did liken
Canterbury's to
House and, more to the point, the early (better) seasons of
The Practice, because of its gritty tone and the desperation and passion Canterbury brings to the cases. Outside of the most basic similarities — she's a jerk with a messy personal life and a staff that includes a couple of awed rookies — I don't see much overlap with
Shark, which is about a super-famous, super-rich, super-smug barracuda who goes to work for the prosecution.
Canterbury's Law, which I don't want to sound like I'm overpraising here (though I do find it more intriguing than
Shark), is much less glossy. The main critical point is that when a new legal drama comes around, I have to take it on its own merits and not necessarily hold against it the fact that it resembles something we've seen before. This is TV we're talking about, after all, and there have been courtroom shows for longer than I've been around to watch them. It's all about execution, and the casting of
Canterbury's Law (including Ben Shenkman as her associate and Terry Kinney as her DA adversary) and the overall tone impressed me. Not like
Damages, which really did take the legal thriller to a dark and exciting new place. But I'll probably enjoy this one while it lasts — which, given its tough time period and underwhelming opening-night ratings, may only be for a short while.
