Reviews

If you're going to reboot a classic show, there will be some expectation that the reboot will respect what the original did. With the right judge and supporting cast, this could have worked. But instead it's a hammy overacted mess. The bailiff plays everything at a 10, while the DA seems to think she's in a 1940s detective noir. The clerk was apparently written off without explanation after they spent half a season building him up as a potential love interest. Melissa Rauch was a great bit player in the Big Bang Theory, but she simply lacks the gravitas to carry this show. Only John Laroquette shines through, but the material is so bad you can almost picture him sitting in his trailer and just sighing between takes. The glory of the original Night Court - beyond the impeccable cast - was how they wove interesting, quirky, and funny cases in and out of episodes. The court itself was as much a part of the show as anyone there. Cases here are throwaways or worse. I really wanted to like this, if only to get to enjoy John Laroquette one more time, and I just can't.

I had pleasant memories of Gimme a Break when it ran in the 80s, but I caught this episode in reruns recently and... man it does not hold up. Nell's a know-it-all busybody who dominates her family, refusing to listen to anyone. She pushes the idea of Joey as a gifted child with all the nuance and understanding of a rhino on cocaine. Everyone around her is telling her to calm down - family, friends, counselor, Joey - and she jumps from "your kid is smart" to "he can pick up a violin and be a virtuoso with no lessons or training at all".

And it's not just her. People are screaming their lines at each other for no good reason. The laugh track is intrusive and shrill. I kept lowering the volume looking for a level that didn't pierce my ears, and I ended up almost on mute.

I really liked this show when I was a kid, and I guess as a kid you don't notice this stuff.

I became a huge Mike Birbiglia fan after watching his previous specials. He's got a gift for storytelling, and in particular the special-long story surrounding his auto accident and subsequent proposal to his wife was brilliantly done.

So I'm not sure what happened here. It's less storytelling and much more yelling at the top of his lungs for some reason. I hate to think he's going to become one of those comedians who believe that loud = funny. I enjoyed some of the material - his list of 7 reasons he didn't want to have kids, for example - but after awhile I found myself just wishing it was over because of the wild swinging between telling a story and then just yelling at me.

He's still one of the funniest comedians going today, and I think if you're not bothered by all the yelling then you would probably enjoy this. But I kind of wish he would go back to a more modulated way of getting his stories across. They're funny and poignant enough on their own without him ramming the punchlines down my throat.

The Law Firm has a nice premise: young attorneys trying real cases and getting the boot if they screw up. The last one gets a big firm job or a wad of cash, whatever.

Unfortunately, this is what the Law Firm is: evidence that, without Donald Trump, the Apprentice would have already folded. Roy Black is a terrific trial lawyer, but he's got the camera presence of a lump of wet moss. His emotionless delivery and bizarre arm movements were bad enough, but his attempts to build drama at the end before "dismissing" a candidate were laughable. What this show lacks -- the thing that really drives the Apprentice -- is the boardroom scene where the candidates face off and get grilled by the Donald. A couple of isolated comments like "he could have done better" or "I made a mistake" just aren't going to cut it. Black's got to get in there and start grilling them, hard.

To make things worse, we learned almost nothing about the candidates, except of course that they all plan to win and think the people around them are a bunch of idiots and losers. None of them particularly stood out as a good lawyer or even an interesting personality. When someone got "dismissed", I didn't really care -- I had no vested interest in any of the competitors.

And the real problem is, it's impossible to do justice (so to speak) to an actual case when it only gets 15-20 minutes of actual camera time. This show would work a lot better if they'd come up with one big case, split them into teams, and let them work through the various aspects as the weeks went by. Then, at the end, the final two would get to try the case (one on each side), and the winner of the case would win the competition.

In short, don't waste your time. I'd like to think this show is evidence that the reality TV craze is headed for the dumpster at last, but I'm sure that more dreck will be right behind it.

Rating: 0 out of 10.