The Hard, Fast, Fall Of Modern Family - Season Six!

The Good: The performances are fine . . .
The Bad: Not terribly funny, Uninteresting character directions, Reworking of prior plots
The Basics: Modern Family falls into a rut in its sixth season and tries to get out with some creative episodes that nevertheless fail to garner laughs.


Last year when the Primetime Emmy Awards were announced, perhaps what was considered the biggest surprise of the night was that Veep defeated Modern Family for Outstanding Comedy Series. I have not watched Veep since its first season (reviewed here!), so I was fairly surprised that it would beat the usually stalwart Modern Family. Modern Family Season 6 was the season that was represented in the latest Emmys and after finally getting around to watching it, it is far less of a surprise that the season did not take home the night's big prize.

Modern Family is, objectively viewed, pretty terrible. To wit, after starting the season on DVD and watching three episodes, it took me another two weeks to force myself to watch the rest of the episodes. The season is problematic in that it is not very funny and the characters almost all seem to be in ruts. Comedy is based on surprise and in its sixth season, Modern Family seldom surprises. To wit, when Alex is competing with her high school nemesis for the valedictorian position, he tells he "likes" her and when she tells her parents, they immediately suspect it is a tactic from the boy's very demanding parents. At that point, my wife turned to me and said, "Of course they're wrong; they are always wrong." And she was right. The whole season was like that.

Following the wedding of Mitch and Cam, the Pritchetts and Dunphys settle into their normal routines. Alex prepares for college, which leads to a lot of mixed feelings from Claire and Phil. Jay and Gloria deal with their language divide and Gloria's citizenship and Mitch and Cam begin to worry that Lily is a mean girl.

The season relies much more on gimmicks in its sixth season, with episodes where the entire episode is assembled from skype chats from Claire to the rest of the family when she is stuck in an airport and comes to believe that Hayley has run off to Las Vegas and gotten married or where Phil is determined to be present for Alex's graduation, so he is embodied in the episode as a tablet computer affixed to a rolling tripod (? where the hell did the family get the money for that rig?!).

The season continues the deadpan documentary style for most of the episodes and that generally works. Unfortunately, the show starts to show some serious wear. The farce "Three Turkeys" feels very assembled (good farce feels energetic and surprising to the characters, instead of scripted like it actually is!) and "Strangers In The Night" is painfully predictable. The insult to injury of "Strangers In The Night" is that the Alex plot in it is essentially a repeat of the Frasier episode "Frasier's Imaginary Friend." Christopher Lloyd, who was an executive producer on Frasier at the time of "Frasier's Imaginary Friend" was still an executive producer on Modern Family when "Strangers In The Night" was made. It feels intellectually lazy.

The main characters in Modern Family Season 6 are:

Jay Pritchett - He works on potty training his son Joe, even though the toddler may not be ready for it and he quietly anoints Alex as his successor in looking out for the family in the future when he is gone. He tries to get one up on Gloria by bringing her to a dog show he knows she will hate so he won't have to get dragged to one of her family events. He pressures Phil into blowing off a car deal Phil made for Hayley's 21rst birthday gift and he bonds with Cam by subbing in at Cam's all-gay bowling team,

Gloria Delgado-Pritchett - At Jay's urging, she applies for U.S. citizenship and is dismayed when all of her studying proves to be irrelevant. She gets jealous of Manny's first girlfriend and comes around to the idea that Jay is not crazy when he tells her he thinks her sister is hitting on him. She becomes the object of interest for a peeping tom,

Manny Delgado - He pals around with Luke, but gets into plenty of trouble on his own. He gets his first girlfriend and proves predictably inept at football, which causes some problems in the family. With Jay's help, he confronts a bully, but in the process becomes one,

Mitchell Pritchett - He is dismayed when Cam shows up for one of his trials and Cam overshadows him for news coverage for an important case he wants to get publicity on. He is pressured into paying Jay back for the down payment he and Cam were given many years ago for their house, in the process squandering Cam's uncle's inheritance. He goes to work for a week with Claire and keeps the fact that he was laid off from the law firm from Cam long after the fact,

Cameron Tucker - His high school football team has an unprecedented winning streak . . . until he gets Mitch to come to a game and nearly ruins the streak. Always eager for attention, he upstages Mitch when Mitch starts pitching a story idea to a reporter while at a party. He takes Lily to clown school against Mitch's wishes and gets adult braces to upstage Alex at her high school graduation,

Lily Tucker-Pritchett - She gets mean for a while and turns out not to be gifted, which her fathers discover when a truly gifted child befriends her. She attends clown school and becomes vicious to Cam, much to Mitch's delight. She also goes through an especially stubborn phase,

Claire Dunphy - Tries so hard to become friends with Hayley on adult terms and have a romantic Valentine's day with Phil, though she has trouble accepting Hayley and becomes jealous of her own alter ego. She takes Phil's fun Halloween decorating and makes it into a house of horrors. She is particularly afraid when it seems Hayley as run off and gotten married without telling her,

Phil Dunphy - He becomes assertive after saving his whole family's lives when they narrowly miss a car accident. He becomes jealous of Luke when Luke suddenly becomes talented at everything he does and he takes Andy on as a protege. He and Claire get bothered by their new neighbors and he uses his father to get back at the obnoxious rednecks. He writes a song for Alex for her graduation and is forced to attend her graduation as a robot that people actually want to interact with more,

Hayley Dunphy - Her style blog takes off, largely because she doesn't know how to turn off her webcam. She gets a job with an influential fashion designer and tries to befriend Andy. When she actually meets Andy's fiance, Beth, she gets jealous and discovers she might have feelings for him,

Alex Dunphy - Has a predictably intense Senior year. She tours a number of colleges and is adverse to Cal Tech solely because of its proximity to her parents' house. She competes to be valedictorian and has multiple boyfriends for the first time in her life. As her graduation nears, she actually bonds with Hayley - getting drunk at a concert with her and having Senior Skip Say with her - and she figures out what direction she wants her life to take in the process,

and Luke Dunphy - He becomes jealous when Phil starts spending time with Andy and is horrified by Lily's interpretation of the sex talk. He is about to be left out of the school's awards day when Claire bribes the principal. He gets involved with a number of shenanigans, like attempting to make a jetpack with soda and mentos.

The sixth season of Modern Family has no truly extraordinary performances, though none of them are particularly bad. Ty Burrell continues to dominate the comedic moments with his deadpan and in the sixth season none of the rest of the cast steps up to be particularly funny. In fact, the performances are so mundane and the show is so unfunny in the sixth season that the moment of greatest elation I had while watching the twenty-four episode season was when Olive Platt appeared on-screen for a single episode.

That's probably the best place to leave such analysis; after five solid seasons, when Oliver Platt simply showing up is the high point, the series probably has jumped the shark.

For other works from the 2014 – 2015 television season, please check out my reviews of:
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 2
The Flash - Season 1
Orange Is The New Black - Season 3
Sense8 - Season 1
Grace And Frankie - Season 1
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Season 1
Agent Carter - Season 1
Daredevil - Season 1
The Newsroom - Season 3
House Of Cards - Season 3
Doctor Who - Season 8
True Blood - Season 7
The Walking Dead - Season 5

3.5/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Movie And Televisin Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Season Of Building: Modern Family Season 5 Has Real Humor!

The Good: Good acting, Good character work, Decent plot progression
The Bad: Surprisingly little that is universal
The Basics: In its fifth season, Modern Family does not disappoint; it is consistently funny and is building well toward its promised purpose!


Not long ago, I finally caught up on The Big Bang Theory and I found myself tremendously disappointed with its seventh season (reviewed here!), so I was a bit worried going into Modern Family Season Five. My experience has been that when shows go bad, they tend to go bad in batches, like all of the writers get bored at the same time. Fortunately, that is not the case right now in television! Modern Family Season Five is one of the best seasons of the show yet.

The premise of the fifth season of has the show taking on a bit more of a serialized flavor than in some of the prior seasons. As a result, the season is building to something from its first episode on and fortunately, Modern Family does not jerk the audience around with the “will they or won’t they” plot conceits. The season continues to follow the Pritchett/Dunphy family and while there are numerous opportunities to go troublingly negative – most notably in the backstory of Phil Dunphy – the show does not get as dark as the season of The Big Bang Theory that aired during the same season. While there might be some bias in favor Mitch, Cam and Phil, the episodes all try to include most of the Modern Family cast, though the Dunphy girls seem to have less screentime than in prior seasons and Claire works best when she is setting up jokes for Phil.

With gay marriage legalized, Mitchell and Cameron conspire to propose to one another. Despite the guys both trying to make a grand romantic gesture, their plan goes awry, though they end up proposing to one another. They begin planning their wedding, the various Dunphys and Pritchetts go on with their lives. In this season, Mitch lets Cameron try his hand at planning the wedding and Cam becomes the new football coach at Manny and Luke’s school. Phil accidentally leads on a number of divorcees looking for houses, with hilarious consequences.

Claire goes to work for Jay and tries to distance herself from being the boss’s daughter. In the process, she learns that Jay actually tried to get Phil out of the picture, back in the day, and Phil learns that Claire might well have only been with her because he got her pregnant. Alex gets a psychiatrist for her overachieving and managing her stress, while Haley begins to show a real aptitude for photography and business. Gloria, Luke, and Manny show up and act as supporting characters without any big arcs of their own.

In the fifth season of Modern Family, the acting is virtually flawless. The main cast – led by Ed O’Neill, Eric Stonestreet, Ty Burrell, and Jesse Tyler Ferguson – know their parts perfectly and this is not a big season for transformations. While Haley might have the biggest character evolution in the season, actress Sarah Hyland does not have much to do to change the way the character is played. In other words, there are no great performance changes that allow her to expand her range on the show.

The fifth season of Modern Family does what a sitcom ought to do very well; it makes us laugh and the characters are interesting. This is very much an archetypal sitcom in its fifth season as it is plot-heavy and involved in the characters without making broader statements on humanity. It is frequently laugh-out-loud funny, especially from Ty Burrell’s Phil. But, it’s also a season that leaves little needing analysis; this is a funny season of television that continues the story of the Dunphy’s and Pritchett’s by having most of the family preparing for the imminent wedding of Cam and Mitch.

For other shows from the 2013 – 2014 television season, be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Big Bang Theory - Season 7
Game Of Thrones - Season 4
New Girl - Season 3
The Walking Dead - Season 4
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 1
The Newsroom - Season 2
Breaking Bad - Season 5
The Clone Wars - Season 6
Orange Is The New Black - Season 2
Parenthood - Season 5

7.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Departures And Arrivals Make For A Satisfying Fourth Season Of Modern Family.

The Good: Very funny, Decent performances, Interesting characters
The Bad: The series is becoming somewhat formulaic, Little enduring from the season.
The Basics: Modern Family Season Four is very funny, but little of it sticks with the viewer after the episodes are done.


When it comes to seasons of television, I find that one of the components that matters quite a bit to me when it comes to deciding to purchase a DVD or Blu-Ray boxed set is the season’s rewatchability (which makes quite a bit of sense). In recent years, there have been a few television series that I have enjoyed watching, but that I am not convinced have a timeless quality that makes me want to add them to my permanent collection. Few shows these days are both rewatchable and quotable to the extent that I enjoy watching them over and over again and can foresee doing so for years to come. In fact, only 30 Rock (“I want to go to there!”) and Happy Endings (“Shut your stupid whore mouth!”) come instantly to mind. While Modern Family seems like it would be a natural addition to my collection, especially given how much my wife and I love Frasier (reviewed here!), I remain on the fence about it as a part of my permanent library.

The fourth season of Modern Family is good, but it is not exceptional and while it has heartwarming moments, some of the humor is a bit more predictable than in prior seasons. The characters continue to develop, but the serialized elements in the season are understated – they focus almost entirely on Gloria’s pregnancy, the house that Cam and Claire are trying to flip, and Haley’s departure for and return from college. The season also is notably lacking in exceptional lines that make one feel like the characters and season have been defined. Instead, this feels like largely like a very typical sitcom . . . with performers who are able to get the most out of the average lines. More than in some of the prior seasons, the actors noticeably set up the punchlines, as opposed to them feeling like they come organically. On the flip side, some of the series’ stars truly make their roles look effortless. As always, Ty Burrell, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Eric Stonestreet excel at playing their parts and making the season watchable and enjoyable. But, as my wife pointed out after Burrell landed a great deadpan in the Halloween episode, “If he [Ty Burrell] wasn’t on this, I’m not sure it would be worth watching.”

Following the realization that she is pregnant, Gloria struggles to find the best time to tell Jay. When Jay is abducted for his birthday, she finds her moment and she is thrilled when he is happy about the pregnancy. With the Pritchetts planning to make way for their new baby, the Dunphys deal with the emotional departure of Haley. With their oldest daughter headed off to college, Phil and Claire try to find a new balance and that leads Claire and Cameron to team up to restore and flip a house they bought (much to the chagrin of Phil and Mitchell).

But Haley’s absence is shortlived as she gets into trouble in college and leaves after only a few weeks. When she moves back home and has to do community service, the family’s dynamic is restored. With Gloria worried about how Manny will react to having a new brother, Cam and Mitch start teaching Lily about Vietnam . . . which she resists.

In the fourth season of Modern Family, most of the humor is based on deadpan deliveries and quick turns of phrase (“You're the kind of person who can be twice as scary without wearing any makeup.”). The situations in the fourth season are not particularly loaded with inherent humor – Jay sees the woman to whom he lost his virginity while on a trip to Florida and she doesn’t remember him, Phil gets stuck under a motorcycle, Alex tries to get a picture of Haley wherein Haley looks bad – but the show is funny for the lines, though many of those are very specific to the moments they are in (as opposed to usable catchphrases).

In the fourth season of Modern Family, the main characters include:

Jay Pritchett – Who is thrilled on New Year’s Eve to play cards with Billy Dee Williams. He is continually bugged by Phil, works to parent Manny and put up with Gloria’s pregnancy (and her family’s arrival after the baby is born),

Gloria – Goes somewhat crazy while pregnant. Still, she is very concerned about how Manny will go from being an only child to having to share her affections. In fact, it is such a concern to her that she tries to keep the baby, Fulgencio, in when she goes into labor on Manny’s birthday,

Manny – Suave as always, he tries to get a dramatic lead part in the school plays. However, he finds himself upstaged by the least likely source . . . Luke! Still, Manny helps Gloria come to terms with being pregnant and has his first kiss,

Mitch Pritchett – Gets over the prior season’s adoption failure with Cam and starts making new friends, including a lesbian couple whose son has a crush on Lily. He tries to be supportive of Cam with Cam going back to work and with Cam feeling distant from Lily, but finds it tough to keep quiet when Cam and Claire fix up a house they are trying to flip. He acts as lawyer for both Haley and Gloria,

Cameron – Goes back to work, this time as a music teacher. He actually connects with his students incredibly well and he and Mitch have a fun New Year’s out together. He and Mitch turn Lily into an over-competitive gymnast and he becomes obsessed with marrying Lily when Lily maries Mitch first,

Lily – Good for the shocking one-liners, she is growing up and gets into gymnastics. She learns her mother was not a princess and that the tooth fairy does not, traditionally, leave one hundred dollar bills for teeth,

Phil Dunphy – Writes down his Phil-osophies for Haley and continues to practice magic with Luke. Despite bonding with Luke, he seems to recognize that Luke is a budding psychopath. He tries to be a part of Jay’s life and ultimately beats him up at a kid’s birthday party. He gets into a conflict with Gil Thorpe over selling the house Claire and Cam want to flip,

Claire Dunphy – She is bored and takes on the project of flipping a house with Cam, despite them having very different visions on how to accomplish that. She feels vindicated when Haley realizes how hard it is to get respect from the family,

Haley – Goes to college and gets expelled when she falls on a police officer while fleeing a party drunk. She returns home and is distressed to have to share a room with Alex again. She plays the Tooth Fairy and helps Alex learn to flirt,

Alex – She begins to strike out on her own. While everyone is convinced her boyfriend is gay, she believes he is not. She develops a talent for music as part of a small band and helps Haley take care of Luke one night while their parents are out,

And Luke – Goes on his first date, not realizing that Phil and the girl’s mom were doing all the chatting online. He makes a transition from set painter to opera singer in the school play. He re-established order in everyone’s life through acts of revenge when Phil steps into Claire’s shoes and messes things up for all of the family members.

Ultimately, Modern Family Season Four is funny and thoroughly enjoyable when one is watching it, but it is not a season I found myself contemplating at all when it was done. The episodes are amusing and the characters are fun, but it’s hardly a timeless show and the fourth season of Modern Family treads closer to the average than the extraordinary.

For other shows from the 2012 – 2013 season, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Big Bang Theory - Season Six
30 Rock - Season Seven
Revolution - Season 1
Parenthood - Season 4
Veep - Season 1
Game Of Thrones - Season 3
New Girl - Season 2
Happy Endings - Season 3
The Walking Dead - Season 3
Arrested Development - Season 4
House Of Cards - Season 1
True Blood - Season 5

6/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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In Its Third Season, Modern Family Hits A Hilarious Stride!

The Good: Consistently gunny, Decent character development, Good serialization for some of the plot elements.
The Bad: Nothing exceptional on the acting front (that’s qualified in the review!).
The Basics: Modern Family Season Three is arguably the best season so far and is well worth picking up for anyone who likes eclectic family comedies!


I can think of no single comedy that so quickly rocketed into the “must watch each week” category for my wife and I as Modern Family. We actually got hooked during the primary run of Modern Family’s third season and once we decided it was a new weekly tradition for us, we backtracked and watched all of Season 1 (reviewed here!) and Season 2 (reviewed here!) in short order. But having rewatched the entire third season again, it is easy to see why it was the season that hooked us both.

In its third season, Modern Family is consistently funny and the characters actually grow beyond the comfort levels established for them in the prior seasons without making them seem even momentarily like new or unfamiliar characters. Over the course of the twenty-four half hour episodes of Season Three, the Pritchetts and Dunphys experience more of the trials and tribulations of daily life in contemporary times. This family-focused comedy follows three family units within the extended family of Jay Pritchett, The result is a show that is willing to serialize some of its important elements in order to actually develop the characters. Unlike some of the earlier seasons, in its third season, Modern Family commits to the characters over each episode’s theme.

It is in the third season that Claire runs for city council because the current head of the city council ignores her pleas for a new traffic sign. Her effort to run for elected office is vocally supported by Phil and the three children who realize that if Clair wins, she will not be home to bug them for quite some time. As they work to support Claire, Haley begins her college search and discovers that she might not have what it takes to go to college when she graduates (if she graduates!) high school! Cam and Mitchell work to adopt a second baby, much to the chagrin of Lily.

More ridiculous elements only survive the individual episodes, like the Christmas episode which has the whole extended family running around to prepare for an express Christmas or the episode that pits the dreamers against the family members who believe in empirical, provable, results. Jay and Claire essentially fight one another to do Manny and Luke’s egg drop project. Jay tries to set Manny up with a work ethic by having him become a door to door salesman and Lily starts saying the “F-word!”

The third season of Modern Family works very hard to balance the various characters, but more often than not, the show finds focus with Phil. So, for example, as Claire campaigns for the city council, it is often Phil’s backwards attempts to help that steal the show. And while the three women in the Dunphy family seem like they would be the focus of an episode where their menstrual cycles synch up on Leap Day, it is actually Phil’s reactions to their heightened moodiness that steals the show. In fact, it seems like in every episode in the third season of Modern Family, there is a plotline that integrally involves Phil. That is not so with all of the other characters.

The show takes on a few more serious concepts, like the death of a neighbor who was Luke’s friend and the revelation that Haley has lost her virginity. And when Gloria screws up and lets down Phil, the show uncharacteristically confronts head-on the attraction that Phil has for his father-in-law’s wife. That is actual character growth. Of course, elements like Jay and Claire getting increasingly competitive with one another is very much within their established characters. Part of what makes Modern Family so good is how the show works hard to evolve its characters, but seems to acknowledge that not everyone changes and those who do change have the tendency to have relapses of one form or another.

While the characters doo seem to grow a bit in the course of the third season of Modern Family, the acting is largely what one might expect from the show. By this point, all of the adult actors know their roles and they continue to play within their bounds. It is notable that by the end of the third season, Modern Family’s young cast successfully embodies each of their characters enough to convince the viewers that they are thoroughly professional and secure in exactly who they are supposed to be.

As is typical with television comedies, Modern Family Season Three comes with minimal bonus features. There is a gag reel and a handful of deleted scenes where the characters talk to-camera from the couch (Modern Family has a quasi-documentary shooting style). This is not one of those series’ where every episode gets multiple commentary tracks. Still, the low-key extras can be very nice. The primary programming of Modern Family Season 3 makes it worth the buy on its own!

For other shows from the 2011 – 2012 television season, please check out:
30 Rock - Season 6
The Big Bang Theory - Season 5
Happy Endings - Season 2
New Girl - Season 1
Once Upon A Time - Season 1
Weeds - Season 7

8.5/10

For other television reviews, be sure to check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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In Its Second Season, Modern Family Continues To Delight!

The Good: Very funny, Decent characters, Good acting
The Bad: Light on DVD bonus features, Replayability is less than I would have thought
The Basics: Modern Family - Season Two continues to chronicle the story of the Pritchett/Dunphy extended family in an entertaining fashion that does not use the DVD medium as well as it could.


Modern Family is one of those television shows that has rapidly worked its way into my heart. My wife was home ill one night when I was working late and she caught multiple episodes and she had me get Modern Family Season 1 (reviewed here!) out from our local library. Since then, we have been watching it very regularly and when I picked up Modern Family - Season 2 on DVD, it made her very happy. And while I enjoyed the second season of Modern Family, while experiencing it on DVD, I had the odd sensation that it was not a very enduring comedy. That might seem like an odd thing to write, but there were a few episodes in the second season that my wife and I caught on television several months back and when they came up on these discs, neither of us wanted to watch them again.

Whenever I consider a season or a series, the level of replayability is part of what I evaluate in order to recommend for or against people buying the DVD or Blu-Ray. In the case of Modern Family Season Two, objectively the show was wonderful and I enjoyed the experience of watching it, but when it came time to rewatch it, I was far less inclined to than I would have suspected. In other words, Modern Family in its second season seems to be doing everything right, but the comedy does not hold up as well over multiple viewings as some other sitcoms I have watched and reviewed of late.

In its second season, Modern Family is a series of twenty-four half hour (less considering there are no commercials on the DVDs) episodes that focus on the extended Pritchett/Dunphy family. The main characters remain the same from the first season to the second and in the second season, their story continues as pretty much a series of embarrassing or awkward situations that illustrate well the foibles in contemporary relationships, especially as they pertain to family life.

It is in this season that Mitchell helps to build his daughter’s play castle and he gets caught in an awkward situation on Halloween at his job. Claire attempts to get a speeding neighbor to stop, which drastically complicates Phil’s business relationship when that neighbor wants to sell her house. This is the season where Alex has her first kiss and discovers that popular kids are deeply insecure and that by not caring about popularity, she can become popular. Cameron and Mitchell also have to choose who Lily would go to should they both die fast and horribly and they use an earthquake to get out of visiting one of their friends.

As with the first season, the second season of Modern Family features multiple episodes that are centered around a single theme or event. For example, in “Two Monkeys And A Panda,” the three major conflicts all center around characters trying to put themselves in the place of another. It’s like an empathy test as Phil – using a spa day that Claire was supposed to use – tries to learn just what Claire wants to hear in order to be a better husband, Claire tries to keep peace in the family when Alex accidentally ruins Haley’s sweaters, Mitchell has to rectify Lily’s adoption paperwork (which put Cameron’s last name as Lily’s middle name) and Gloria deals with Jay’s plan for their bodies that conflicts with her own idea about what one does with their own corpse. Throughout the course of the episode, truths compel the characters to grow by making them see the world through their partners’ or family member’s eyes.

While the somewhat episodic nature of the second season of Modern Family makes the show a little more plot-based than character-centered, Modern Family still has more character (and more characters!) than most other situational comedies. In the second season, the principle characters of Modern Family are:

Jay Pritchett – The patriarch of the family, he is married to Gloria and works hard to raise Manny with her, despite finding Manny to be a little weird. He tries to help Cam keep Mitchell away from tools and is frequently put in his place by Gloria, especially when he disrespects her Colombian customs. Loosening up a little to show affection in order to not repeat the problems he had with Mitch and Claire, he is a solid guy who enjoys the benefits his success has brought him,

Gloria Delgado-Pritchett – Irked by how Jay disrespects her sometimes, she is a little clingy with Manny. She becomes obsessed with the way one of their neighbors’ dogs barks constantly (which leads the neighbor to realize that Gloria’s shrill voice is what he has been misinterpreting as an animal for months) and she tries to help out at one of the school dances, against Claire’s wishes. She also tries to maintain a friendship by telling her friends that Jay is not well,

Manny Delgado – the socially awkward son of Gloria, he has a more formal and oddly adult outlook on life. He has an epiphany late in the season that he has been wasting his childhood by being a good kid and he has a bit of fun changing up his life,

Mitchell Pritchett – The son of Jay and partner of Cameron, he works hard to fit in at his new job, while still being taken seriously. He avoids public displays of affection, continues to be somewhat competitive with Claire (though they come together to try to get Cameron and Phil to change their behaviors). He starts to trust his relationship with Cam more this season,

Cameron Tucker – Mitchell’s significant other, he falls apart on Halloween when recounting his own version of a traumatic experience. He refuses to believe Mitchell when Mitch tells him his mother is being inappropriate with him and he does most of the day to day parenting for Lily,

Lily Tucker-Pritchett – Falls a little behind her peer group, which alarms Mitch and Cam. Otherwise, she is pretty much just a baby,

Phil Dunphy – The awkward husband of Claire and father to Luke, Alex and Haley, he continues to do well as a real estate agent. The family seems to accept that he has a crush on Gloria and he works very hard to impress his father-in-law, Jay. Outside Valentine’s Day, though, he and Claire seldom seem affectionate,

Claire Dunphy – Jay’s daughter (and something of a Daddy’s girl) and Phil’s wife, she slowly begins to tire of running the kids around, even to the point where she trades responsibilities with Phil for a day. It is her idea to get rid of the old car that has a lot of her and Jay’s personal history,

Hayley – Having dumped Dylan, she finds herself bouncing between multiple guys, enjoying her popularity. She grooms Alex to be popular and is otherwise just an average teenager,

Alex – the brainy daughter of Phil and Claire, she has an ongoing rivalry with Hayley. As her middle school graduation approaches, she seriously considers using her valedictory address to put the popular kids in their place,

And Luke – The youngest Dunphy child, he has attention deficit issues and takes after his father.

As for the acting, the adult actors – led by Ed O’Neill (Jay), Ty Burrell (Phil) and Julie Bowen (Claire) – continue to masterfully execute their, usually ironic, lines. Burrell stands apart as his dry and often comically inappropriate deliveries are paired with a greater sense of physical comedy than anyone else in the cast. The child actors continue to disprove the notion that kids are not worth working with. Rico Rodriguez and Ariel Winter continue to credibly deliver lines that are written as if their characters are much, much older (or mature) than the actors are. Nolan Gould also seems more comfortable with his dialogue (losing the mumbling lisp that plagued him in the first season).

On DVD, Modern Family season two comes with minimal bonus features, making it a tougher sell to buy than it would be to recommend viewers watch as it starts making a rotation in syndication. Even so, this DVD set is easily worth recommending consumers view, if not buy right away.

For other works with Julie Bowen, please check out my reviews of:
Horrible Bosses
Weeds - Season Four
Boston Legal
Lost

8/10

For other television reviews, please be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the films and shows I have reviewed!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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An Extended Family With Thematic Wackiness: Modern Family Season One Is Enjoyable!

The Good: Very funny, Decent acting, Interesting characters
The Bad: So many characters some get underused, Some very typical sitcom plots, One or two less strong performers.
The Basics: Modern Family shows its pluck with an engaging and very funny first season that holds up fairly well.


One of the key elements in recommending a DVD boxed set, from me, is replayability. This is an aspect that comedy usually suffers on and I have been called an especially harsh grader in the way that I consider shows that I do not think will replay well. When I first sat down to watch Modern Family Season One with my wife, I almost instantly began to feel like the show was going to suffer on the replayability front. I still have that feeling. The reason I felt that way so fast is that when the first episode’s teaser began, two of the characters, Mitch and Cam, are on a plane and Mitch gets defensive over his perceptions of being judged by those whom he thinks are homophobic. As it turns out, his new adopted daughter is holding a cream puff and the paranoid mistake causes Cam to buy everyone headsets for the trip. I saw that gag years ago during the original advertisements for Modern Family and the moment the scene began, I recalled it. More than a testament to any sort of phenomenal memory on my part, it is a sad commentary on how the show telegraphs itself.

That said, watching the four-disc Season One DVD set, I found myself laughing quite a bit. And when I write “laughing quite a bit,” I mean both quantity and quality. I was laughing enthusiastically and frequently and more than any show in recent memory, Modern Family caught me off guard when it was not going in remarkably predictable plot or character directions. The two extremes are what makes this season a tougher sell for me than some.

Modern Family, in its first season, is the story of the extended Pritchett/Dunphy family. The show in this season is organized around themes. So, for example, one episode explores how competitive feelings affect relationships. While young Manny illustrates a surprising athletic talent at fencing, he runs into a moral quandary when his final opponent is a girl. This raises a long-suppressed conflict between Mitch and Claire over their aborted ice skating career, where Claire abandoned Mitch on the eve of their biggest competition. Every member of the family tries to resolve their feelings and come to a conclusion on their beliefs in the situation and the hilarity comes when both Gloria and Jay, who encourage Manny to not hold back on his opponent because of her gender, try to change their minds mid-fight when they hear the girl’s pitiable story.

Modern Family is shot like a documentary, where characters give monologues to the camera. Unlike Once And Again where those monologues are used to express deeper emotions, on Modern Family, the to-camera exposition usually sets up jokes or reveals tensions between characters at any given moment. This technique, thanks to The Office is becoming more commonplace and Modern Family utilizes it fairly well in its first season.

Like most sitcoms that are thematic, Modern Family works much more to establish characters and create hilarious wordplay. To that end, the show is not so much about what happens – it is more often than not a chronicle of daily life for the characters – but how they go about the mundane events in their lives and the stupid things they say and do while they plod along. To the show’s absolute credit, while some of the plots are pretty standard sitcom plots – Claire searches for a good anniversary gift for Phil after he gives her a thoughtful gift and she phoned it in, a child’s birthday party becomes a chaotic event with much mayhem and conflict – the characters are interesting, even if there are a lot of them to keep track of and they are not all given similar amounts of airtime. In the first season, the show is all about:

Jay Pritchett – The patriarch of the family, Jay is a little more conservative than the rest. Even so, he recently married the gorgeous Gloria, who is younger than his daughter and he is struggling to make a home for Manny. Despite being fabulously successful, he often gravitates toward quiet activities, like watching the football game or spending time flying his model plane in the park. He consistently outsmarts Haley when she tries to escape a night with the grandparents to go to a party and his pride in Manny leads to a fight with Claire when Luke and Manny have a little falling out,

Gloria Delgado-Pritchett – Colombian and divorced from her selfish first husband, she seems to be drawn to Jay for the security he represents for her and Manny. She often butchers English phrases, tries to forgive Jay’s ex-wife for ruining their wedding party and comes to hate Jay’s dog butler statue. She is a terrible driver,

Manny Delgado – The son of Gloria and step-son of Jay, he delights in pointing out that he and Claire are step-siblings. He has a little thing for Haley. In attempting to identify with his Colombian culture, he prepares to go to school in a poncho and play the pan flute. He is good at fencing and mourns the death of his turtle when Jay accidentally kills it,

Phil Dunphy – The awkward husband of Claire, son-in-law of Jay. He desperately seeks Jay’s approval and tries to garner it by flying Jay’s model plane with him (and taking it in the face!). He tries to connect with his children, who are horribly embarrassed by his use of ethnic slang, suffers from a kidney stone and accidentally leads on an ex-girlfriend via Facebook. He loves Claire, but retains a youthful exuberance that she often finds annoying. Someday, he might just fix the broken stair in their house,

Claire Dunphy – Ambitious, professional and determined, she is the daughter of Jay and something of a daddy’s little girl. She is married to Phil, arguably because she got pregnant with Haley. A pragmatist, she keeps order in the house and is dismayed when one of her professional rivals is promoted to a position she otherwise would have obtained by this point in her life. Competitive with her brother, Mitchell, she seeks time with Phil where they can spice up their marriage and wants nothing more – in the end – than a perfect picture of the extended family,

Haley Dunphy – The oldest Dunphy daughter, she is a little slutty and very stupid. She dates Dylan and tries to spend all the time she possibly can with him, including trying to sneak out of the house to be with him. She is a terrible driver and her experience with underage drinking in Hawaii is disasterous,

Alex Dunphy – The brilliant younger Dunphy daughter, she sets up many jokes about Haley’s stupidity. She confronts her fears about boys when she goes to a school dance,

Luke Dunphy – The dimwitted younger Dunphy child, he and Phil are very close. He takes the rap for Phil’s online porn, gets an amazing birthday party that he is not really interested in and hunts under the house for buried treasure,

Mitch Pritchett – The gay son of Jay, he feels closer to his mother still in many ways and he and Cam, who have been together for years, have just adopted Lily from Vietnam. He is a very successful lawyer until the day his boss demands more of his time, which makes him fear he will miss all of Lily’s important milestones and he quits. He quickly discovers that home life is not for him and works to get back into the business world, despite Cam inadvertently sabotaging his chances at an ideal job. He is very competitive with Claire and has little to bond with Jay about, though the two share an interest in astronomy,

Cameron Tucker – The big, loveable man in Mitch’s life, he loves raising Lily and essentially being a house husband to Mitch. He has trouble letting Lily cry and he has a life before Mitch as Fizbo, a tramp clown. He has a moon landing with Jay and dispenses many of the season’s funniest lines,

Lily – The adopted daughter of Mitch and Cam, she is just a baby this season.

On the acting front, Modern Family is something of a mixed bag in its first season. Half of the cast is entirely typecast and the other half is brilliant. Yeah, it’s that dramatic of a difference. Sofia Vergara, as Gloria, is initially presented with bangs and with a more simple sense of beauty before a mid-season change after which she pretty much is only seen in clothes that make her look glamorous. At the other end of the spectrum, Julie Bowen might as well be playing her Boston Legal or Lost characters still. She always seems to play the humorless professional and even in the role of stay-at-home mom Claire Dunphy, she performs the same way. Nolan Gould, Ariel Winter and Sarah Hyland all play the Dunphy children, as expected, like the children they are and Gould’s performance suffers some because it is unclear whether his lack of articulation is an acting choice or a function of the actor’s young age.

On the flip side, Rico Rodriguez gets through an exceptional amount of dialogue where he plays a child who often seems older (or creepier) than he actually is. Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet have exceptional on-screen chemistry as Mitch and Cam, especially as their characters never kiss. They emote an entirely functional, loving relationship with remarkably little physical intimacy on screen. Ed O’Neill’s Jay is a wonderful counterpoint to his years as Al Bundy and his character from The West Wing (where he, improbably enough, seemed remarkably presidential!).

The real winner, even in the first season, is Ty Burrell. Burrell plays Phil and he is an exceptional physical actor with an uncanny knack for making the deadpan absolutely, laugh-out-loud funny. He delivers his craziest lines with a straight face and he is the breakout actor of the first season of Modern Family. Some might watch the show for Sofia Vergara’s breasts, but it is Burrell that delivers the most bang-for-the-buck.

On DVD, Modern Family Season 1 comes with a minimal amount of bonus features. Like most sitcoms, there are featurettes on the making of the show, but little else. Still, especially because it is not yet syndicated, Modern Family Season 1 is well worth watching and – if you can find it on sale – buying.

For other debut comedy seasons, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Happy Endings Season 1
Frasier - The Complete First Season
Family Guy - Volume 1

7.5/10

For other television reviews, be sure to visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Boston Legal: How I Survived The Bush Years. . . Now A Set Of Coasters.

The Good: VERY funny, Very timely, Interesting characters/formula.
The Bad: Character additions (and subtractions) make for an erratic series, Very dated, Very formulaic.
The Basics: Boston Legal entertained me during some rough political years, but now David E. Kelley's last real success sits idle because it was so tied to the specifics of that time.


I am a proud liberal and a fan of the works of David E. Kelley. But as I sit contemplating the Boston Legal complete series bundle pack, I am unsurprised that ABC Home Video has not sprung for a sleek, interesting series pack which would do justice to the series. For all five years of it, I watched Boston Legal and it became an invaluable tool in making me feel like I was not alone and true freedoms in our democracy in the United States were not, in fact, dead. But now, only three years after I mourned the show's passing on television, I find I am less able to get into it and hardly excited by it when I try for a marathon viewing.

The reason for this is simple. Despite my love of the overall series, Boston Legal is very erratic season-to-season and it both became mired in what it was and tried to live in denial of another aspect of what it was. Put simply, one aspect of Boston Legal was that it was a formulaic law dramedy with quirky characters making a mockery out of Bush-era politics and saying what the liberals in the United States wished their ideological leaders would have the balls to stand up and say. The aspect of itself that it tried to deny almost every year was that it was the show with the most mature (in age) cast on television, so they tried to dilute their talent with youth. In a cast dominated by regulars William Shatner, James Spader, Candice Bergen and Rene Auberjonois, Taraji P. Henson, Justin Mentell, Rhona Mitra and Lake Bell would enter and depart because their characters didn't fit the paradigm or corporate culture of a serious, older law firm.

The Boston Legal Seasons 1 - 5 pack is a simple bundle pack consisting of the standard DVD releases of:
Season 1
Season 2
Season 3
Season 4
and Season 5 without any additional bonus features, discs, or incentives.

Boston Legal is the story of five years at the Boston law firm Crane, Poole and Schmidt. Brilliant lawyer Denny Crane hires the largely unethical lawyer Alan Shore to boost the law firm's reputation and bottom line. Shore clashes with the more professional Paul Lewiston, Brad Chase and Denise Bauer and develops a flirtation with senior partner Shirley Schmidt. Denny Crane, in addition to never losing a case, comes to believe he suffers from Mad Cow Disease and turns to Alan to help him in his personal life. While Alan gets Denny help for his early-stage Alzheimer's, Alan finds other projects to keep himself busy, like fighting Bush-era Constitutional violations and helping out Jerry Espenson, a sufferer of Asburger's Syndrome.

While Denny and Alan become the best of friends, they frequently disagree on the politics of cases they try, which range from a girl suing her school when she gets AIDS because her education was limited to "abstinence only" to suing Big Pharma for taking advantage of senior citizens. The firm represents a client from the Sudan who sues the U.S. for not stopping genocide there and schoolteachers fired for not teaching Creationism in their science classes. And on and on, after a point always ending with Denny and Alan on the balcony at the law firm drinking their scotch.

Boston Legal has a lot going for it. First, it is a rare show that illustrates two men in a growing, largely healthy relationship with one another. Despite the fact that Denny is largely a conservative homophobe and Alan is a very heterosexual liberal, the men get along and even get to the point where they can tell one another they love each other (because they know they don't mean in a homosexual way). That level of maturity in the characters and in the writing is an exceptional thing to see and it has largely been absent on television since Boston Legal went off the air.

As well, Boston Legal has great writing for issues. Writing about the legal implications of the Defense of Marriage Act, the "war on terror," the Iraq War, the No Child Left Behind Act and Bush blunders worked wonderfully to create a series of counterpoints to the . . . well, news during the latter half of the Bush Administration, but now, with some distance they lack the urgency of the time. In other words, Boston Legal spoke articulately at a time when no one was speaking with particular elocution in American politics and now it seems less necessary or vital.

Moreover, I wish that were remedied by great characters. Now, the show has some appeal for the five minutes per episode spent on actual character issues, but the characters were hardly always likable and, frankly, most went underdeveloped because the show was so issue-oriented. Even so, it is worth noting that the major, enduring characters of the series included:

Alan Shore - Having left Young, Frutt and Berlutti, he becomes friends with Denny Crane and sets up a strong record of winning cases. However, he begins to suffer from word salad, night terrors and other psychological disorders that make him vulnerable, requiring him to rely upon the unreliable Denny for both advice and companionship. He pulls out all of the ethical stops to win cases and even circumvents the law to save his friends, including Shirley when she is kidnaped,

Shirley Schmidt - A strong feminist partner, she and Denny once had a very real romance, but she returns to Crane, Poole and Schmidt in Boston because Denny and Alan have gotten out of control. She assigns cases and keeps Denny and Alan in line while advancing personal causes of her own, like taking cases that help to keep abortion legal,

Paul Lewiston - An efficient, older partner, he is responsible for keeping the bottomline rising and accepting cases for the firm that will keep the place both profitable and prestigious. His daughter is a drug addict and requires help and compassion that he has an awkward time delivering,

Brad Chase - One of the firm's rising stars when Alan starts, he is much more serious than most of the lawyers at the firm and he is very concerned with the letter of the law and the prestige of the firm. He spars with Alan and Jeffrey Coho, competing for Denise Bauer's affections,

Denise Bauer - One of the few women who does not find Alan Shore irresistible, she tends to be more pragmatic. She gets into an unlikely relationship with Brad,

Jerry Espenson - An associate at the firm who works on finance law, who suffers from Asberger's Syndrome, he is befriended by Alan when he is treated poorly by the firm and responds by taking Shirley hostage. Over the years, Alan helps him get his job back, get treatment and even stabilize his relationships . . . much to Denny's chagrin,

Clarence - A transvestite who is initially represented by the firm until they realize he has a law degree himself. Alan, Jerry and Clarence have a few adventures which inspire jealousy from Denny,

and Denny Crane - The wacky litigator who relies on his celebrity to astound juries. He is a big supporter of George W. Bush and manages to see the talent in Alan Shore. He comes to rely upon Alan each time his heart is broken and when he needs medical treatment for his Alzheimer's, which is growing more and more problematic.

Even now, Boston Legal is a jewel for the acting. William Shatner has amazing comic delivery as Denny Crane and he sells his character's absurd beliefs in George Bush's policies amazingly well. He has great on-screen chemistry with James Spader's Alan Shore and the two play off one another as one of the great odd couples of television history. Backed by actors like Candice Bergen, Rene Auberjonois, Christian Clemenson, John Laroquette, Mark Valley and Julie Bowen, Boston Legal is one of the richest casts television ever had . . . even if it changes frequently.

In fact, more than when it was on the air, Boston Legal when viewed as a body of work suffers because of how executive producer David E. Kelley had to try to pander to the Studio's whims. The cast frequently is shaken up with younger faces who bring marginal acting abilities and have little chemistry with the more focused and mature performers. And, in the end, that combined with the very dated nature of the caseload at Crane, Poole & Schmidt make this more a sign of the times than a timeless television classic.

For other television series' that made their debut on ABC, please check out my reviews of:
V - Season 1
Lost
Invasion
Once & Again - Season 2
Once & Again - Season 1
Sports Night

6.5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Date This! Boston Legal Shakes It Up For "The Complete Fourth Season" On DVD!

The Good: Wonderful new cast members, Great character work, Interesting cases
The Bad: Lack of impressive DVD bonus features, Dated.
The Basics: Even with only twenty episodes, the addition of John Larroquette to Boston Legal infuses the fourth season with life and zest that makes the DVD worth buying!


[This review was originally written in June of 2008. I enjoyed the narrative voice of it, so I decided to keep in intact. Enjoy!]

Last Tuesday, I lost a friend. I lost a good, dear, and beloved friend on Tuesday at 11 P.M. and the worst part about it was that I didn't know I was losing it until it was gone. Having heard the rumors that the fifth season would be its last, despite the many allusions the week before, it was only when the final credits rolled on Tuesday's double-long episode that I realized Boston Legal was over. It has been a long time since I have sworn as vehemently and articulately as I did on Tuesday. So, the only balm I had was picking up Boston Legal - The Complete Fourth Season on DVD. The twenty-episode season is one of the stronger boxed sets to appear following last year's writer's strike, but now as I contemplate it, I just wish there were more.

In its fourth season, Boston Legal is once again plagued by the network-demanded standards of trying to sex the show up by bringing in younger cast members. Once again, the attempt did not work and by the end of the season, only two of the new characters remained. Fortunately, they were good and decent characters and the show entered its final season with one of its tightest casts ever. But this season saw the addition of John Larroquette as Carl Sack and Tara Summers as Katie Lloyd to enhance the cast and the arrival and departure of Taraji P. Henson as Whitney Rome and Saffron Burrows as Lorraine Weller. And despite the distractions from the rearranging of the cast, the absence of Rene Auberjonois as Paul Lewiston, and the formulaic feeling to the show, Boston Legal makes for a great DVD set for the fourth season.

In the fourth season, Crane, Poole and Schmidt is restructured, largely to keep the mentally unstable Denny Crane in check. Carl Sack arrives from the New York office and instead of pacifying the firm, the eccentricities of Clarence and Jerry begin to wear him down and his romantic relationship with Shirley Schmidt causes Denny to become more unstable. As well, Alan is plagued by the hiring of lawyer Lorraine Weller, who has incredible sexual power over him.

The cases in this season have a tendency to pit the lawyers of the firm against one another at various points, like Alan and Shirley arguing opposite sides of a case and a season finale that has Alan and Denny debating patriotism and dissent in the courtroom. Clarence gets into trouble with his mortgage rates, Jerry is sued for sexual harassment, Denny is sued for firing a fat lawyer. But some of the cases are absolutely brilliant, including one involving a young woman who sues her school for teaching abstinence only education when she gets HIV as a result of how sex education was taught to her. Shirley and Alan sue a delegate for changing their vote in a primary election and Alan goes to the Supreme Court in defense of a mentally retarded man who is being sentenced to death for sexually assaulting a girl. As well, Carl soon reveals that despite their winning record, the firm's books are not balancing and without some cases that make real money (instead of just shaking things up) Crane, Poole and Schmidt is in serious trouble.

The cases are topical and timely, the characters continue to evolve and Boston Legal has a number of high points in the fourth season. As well, by this time, Denny and Alan end each episode out on the balcony, smoking cigars, drinking and waxing philosophical. I don't drink and deplore smoking, but I love the scenes and they contain a camaraderie uncommon in television.

I'm a fan of Boston Legal, but it is in rewatching the series on DVD that one comes to realize how repetitive the show is. As with the prior season, the biggest changes involve the rotating characters and in the topical cases taken by the firm. Indeed, David E. Kelley is the loudest writer on television today fighting the policies of the Bush Administration and the Congressional ineptitudes that allow them to persist. The cases that seek to raise the public debate about the War On Terror (a fired officer who was honest about his homosexuality sues in this season), the use of patriotism as a means of control, and the fluctuating housing market keep the show fresh and one of the defining programs of the mid-2000s.

What this means in the long run is that the boxed set of "Season Four" will be best as a historical document, save for the important development of the show's characters. With the current Administration on its way out, one suspects Boston Legal took its curtain call at an appropriate time (though as a liberal I would have liked to see Kelley's work outlast Bush's!). Still, there is enough in the fourth season that it is punchy and truly great.

That would not be possible were it not for the characters. Boston Legal has interesting, clever characters who make the show worth watching each week. In the fourth season, the principle characters include:

Alan Shore - Breaking up with his Judge girlfriend, Alan finds him powerless to resist Lorraine, whose advances and manipulations soon strain his relationship with Denny. Alan attempts to resist Lorraine, but his word salad returns, much to everyone's chagrin. As Alan and Denny become distant, he also pushes away Clarence and Jerry. Ever the malcontent, he goes up against Shirley and Denny and nabs a case with the Supreme Court arguably to benefit his ego,

Shirley Schmidt - Watching her father suffer from advanced Alzheimer's Disease, Shirley sues to be able to euthanize him. Energized by the presence of Carl, she continues to fight for women's rights in the courtroom,

Carl Sack - Transferred from New York City, he is a straight-laced, intellectual powerhouse who tends to side with Shirley, whom he is deeply in love with,

Clarence - Terrified by Carl Sack's arrival and Claire's departure, he begins to butt heads with, then later befriend Jerry. No longer relying as much on his alternate personalities, he and Jerry become a more overtly comedic duo,

Jerry - Returned to the firm, Jerry begins to litigate more and he finds himself working well with Katie, who seems to enjoy the eccentricities he exhibits as a result of his Asberger's Syndrome. Feeling threatened by Clarence's place in the firm, he soon begins to spend more time with Katie and less with Alan,

Lorraine - A brilliant lawyer, her part seems to be cause for Denny and Alan to fight (whatwith Alan demanding Denny not have sex with her, right before she takes Alan in the office) and to manipulate Alan,

Katie - Fresh out of law school, this British lawyer is hired and soon finds herself working closely with Jerry. Kindhearted and good, she becomes his source of strength,

Whitney - Arriving with Carl, she is a straightlaced lawyer who cannot stomach how odd most of the lawyers at the firm are,

and Denny Crane - Furious over Alan having a relationship with a woman and that Carl and Shirley are dating, his agitated mental state continues to be of concern to the partners. He takes on a murder case while angry at everyone and it appears his perfect-win record might be threatened by that decision! Still, every night, he and Alan find their way to the balcony at the law firm to put the personal and professional issues in context.

A big reason to pick the fourth season of Boston Legal up on DVD is the amazing cast. Gary Anthony Williams and Christian Clemenson play off one another beautifully as Clarence and Jerry, respectively. As well, Tara Summers (Katie) and Clemenson have amazing on-screen chemistry and they play off one another that makes both of their characters that much more believable. Saffron Burrows is a fair addition to the cast and one feels like she might have been robbed; her character of Lorraine fills a niche that has been played out, especially opposite Alan Spader's Alan Shore. Indeed, Burrows is more or less plagued with playing the character Parker Posey briefly played the prior year.

That said, it is the over-fifty cast of Boston Legal that makes the season truly rock. While I missed actor Rene Auberjonois, John Larroquette is an amazing choice to replace him and Carl Sack quickly becomes one of Larroquette's most impressive roles. Unlike his smarmy, career-making role on Night Court, here Larroquette is decent, straightlaced and . . . adult. And Larroquette is completely convincing. And William Shatner continues to impress as Denny Crane, though this season he is mostly just refining the role that reinvigorated his career and publicly announced his comic genius to the world (Star Trek fans knew it from his convention appearances for years before the general populace did!).

On the DVD, though, it becomes clear that one of the best performances of the season is coming from Candice Bergen. As Shirley Schmidt, Bergen presents a powerful argument for death with dignity in the episode where Schmidt sues to let her father with Alzheimer's be euthanized. Bergen is a powerful mix of strongwilled and ballsy and deeply human and hurt by the decision she is making and the way she must make it. Bergen sells the episode and it rivals her best days on Murphy Brown and reminds viewers how incredible a woman of intelligence in power may be.

As with the prior seasons, though, much falls on James Spader to keep the show engaging and powerful. As Alan Shore, Spader tends to use "Season Four" to trot out the "Best Of Alan Shore." So, for example, Spader has played Shore with word salad before. One suspects that jumbling up words like that is a real challenge for an actor and Spader handles it masterfully. But we've already seen him do it in the past. He is at least as good this time around, but largely he is hitting the notes he has before and the pleasure of watching comes more in the character than Spader's consistent performance of it.

Fans of Boston Legal will enjoy this season and it serves as a pretty incredible document for the failure of the Bush Administration and television executives to dominate the philosophical arguments used to sell their lousy policies. It's a shame there is only one set more to come.

For other works featuring John Larroquette, please visit my reviews of:
Southland Tales
The West Wing - Season Two
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock

8/10

For other television program reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Ever-Changing Cast Of Boston Legal Changes Yet Again For Boston Legal - Season 3!

The Good: Decent characters, Interesting stories, Some truly inspired acting
The Bad: Moment when it's too silly, Too topical to hold up, Lack of decent DVD extras.
The Basics: An almost complete lack of DVD bonus features prevents a truly great - if very caught in the moment - show from making a decent DVD release.


I'm certain someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but it sure seems like Boston Legal had the most mature cast on television when it was on the air. In its third season, now on DVD, Boston Legal's youngest regular cast member was Constance Zimmer (at 35/36) who was added for the season. The peculiar thing about Boston Legal is that it seems obsessed with attempting to get a bigger market by continually introducing younger characters, who end up dumped by mid-season. "Season 2" (DVD set reviewed here!) was the worst featuring two new characters fresh out of law school. Why David E. Kelley and his team believe they must continue this foolish experiment in casting eludes me, but I try not to focus on that.

With the third season of Boston Legal, there is a lot that is far better to attract the attention of the viewer. In this boxed set, featuring all twenty four episodes, the firm of Crane, Poole and Schmidt, is once again hired to take on cases that hit close to home for American viewers. Over the course of the season, cases involving organ harvesting, people placed on the no-fly list by Homeland Security, victims of rendition and torture, and patenting blood that could cure HIV. In addition to the zany, there are the usual murder cases where the firm is turned upside down and against each other.

I'm a fan of Boston Legal, but it is in rewatching the series on DVD that one comes to realize how repetitive the show is. Indeed, there is not much in this boxed set that has not already been done in season one (DVD set reviewed here!) or season two. The biggest change is in the characters and in the topical cases taken by the firm. Indeed, David E. Kelley is the loudest writer on television today fighting the policies of the Bush Administration. The cases that seek to raise the public debate about the war, rampant homophobia, the use of torture, and the lack of universal health care make the supposed dogma of Michael Moore look like an intellectual appetizer. Sadly, Boston Legal is more likely than not to depress avowed liberals as Alan Shore, Denny Crane and Shirley Schmidt seem eager to make the cases that never seem to be made against the U.S. Government. That's unfair; in the last few years, many of the most controversial measures of many of the most controversial new laws have been struck down by the courts, which has just led Congress to pass (or renew) the laws with fewer loopholes. Sigh.

So, other than making the viewer think, inflaming liberals and depressing anyone who wishes that reality did not call for such artistic expression, the third season of Boston Legal is likely to lose its punch should the United States ever manage to pull itself out of its current backwards circumstances. That is to say, Boston Legal is an incredibly timely show. The cases fought in the fictional courtrooms provide the legal and ethical backbone for change or rebellion. But they are also arguing cases that are so extreme (like in "Guantanamo By The Bay" where Alan sues the government for torturing his client) that they would not have been plausible as debate or entertainment during, say, the Clinton years. As a result, when things like the Geneva Conventions are once again applied to the military of the United States, and the concept of torturing another human being once again leaves the public's fear-driven mindset, the episodes are less likely to resonate.

For now, though, they are pretty impressive, albeit somewhat preachy - especially considering the older audience that is likely to enjoy the show is also one of the strongest demographics against the current direction of the government. But more than a series of topical cases executed with humor and flair by the attorney's of the weirdest law firm on earth, Boston Legal is about those who make up the firm. In the third season, the principle characters include:

Alan Shore - After being left by "the Squid" (introduced at the end of the prior season), Alan begins to focus his attention on Jerry Espenson, whose awkwardness and intimacy issues prevent him from forming any other meaningful relationships. Alan assists Jerry on cases - which makes Denny jealous -, bends the law to save Shirley's life and finds himself defending Denny when the senior partner has his fat smuggled overseas for alternate fuel research. Late in the season, he finds himself getting involved with a judge,

Shirley Schmidt - Sued by ex-husband Ivan for the affair she had with him, Shirley spends most of the season cleaning up the messes of others. She is captured by a murdering client and soon after finds herself in her usual state of wondering whether Denny can handle practicing law for much longer,

Paul - Is he even in this season?! Seriously, he shows up . . . but is seldom used,

Brad Chase - Continuing his "friends with benefits" relationship with Denise, Brad soon finds competing with new partner Jeffrey Coho irritating. He decides to take the plunge with Denise, when she finds out she is pregnant,

Denise Bauer - Following the apparent death of her wealthy love, Daniel Post, Denise renews her interest in Brad, but finds herself more attracted to the irritating new partner, Jeffrey Coho. When she gets pregnant and determines Brad is the father, she looks to Brad for her future,

Claire Simms - A new associate, she jumps in at the firm defending Clarence and soon finds herself strangely attracted to him. She works to find her niche and while she originally comes off as distant, she soon is revealed to have a real heart,

Clarence - A recurring character who later joins the firm, he is painfully shy and takes on a female persona to adapt and interface with much of the real world. It is soon revealed that he is an adept lawyer and Claire brings him aboard to help her with cases,

Jerry - Recurring frequently and usually as opposing counsel, Jerry Espenson tries to overcome his painful shyness and Asberger's Syndrome by taking on other personas that allow him to adapt. His friendship with Alan leads him to fight legal battles better and he eventually comes to Shirley with an odd request,

Jeffrey Coho - A new partner brought in, he seemed to occupy much the same niche as Alan with his apparent insensitivity toward all, but secretly harboring a very real humanity. Jeffrey tries the first major case of the season, a murder trial wherein the wife of a judge is killed, and soon finds himself hooking up with Denise. When she ultimately rejects him, he leaves the firm (which is notable because most of the characters who leave the show simply disappear),

and Denny Crane - He begins dating a dwarf who turns out to be the daughter of a woman he formerly had a relationship with. As Denny goes through a rocky romance with Bethany, he takes comfort in the stability of his relationship with Alan. Still scatterbrained, Denny is forced to face his past when the son of a former client takes the firm hostage.

Indeed, the episode that deals with the hostage situation, "Son Of The Defender" is especially clever, melding footage from a 1957 episode of a show called "Studio One" in order to present flashbacks involving a younger Denny Crane (William Shatner). That departure makes for a very special episode and it is a shame it did not win the Emmy this year (it was nominated). It's a clever concept and the execution is flawless making it one of the few episodes in the boxed set likely to hold up over time.

And the real gem of Boston Legal that makes it worth watching and/or picking up on DVD is the acting. Boston Legal features a pretty amazing cast. This season, newbies include Craig Bierko (who I only knew from the terrible Scary Movie 4), Constance Zimmer, and Gary Anthony Williams. They are all good, but the seasoned cast is mindblowingly good. Indeed, Rene Auberjonois's best moments of the season come early when he is paired up with his Star Trek: Deep Space Nine costar Armin Shimmerman for some real tongue-in-cheek scenes. William Shatner reaffirms his ability to dominate using comedy and while there is little new in his performance this season, it's still refreshing to see him entertaining as a comic actor. Candice Bergen is given the chance to do something real different with the abduction storyline she is given and she reminds the viewer of just how amazing and versatile she can be. After all, robbed of all body language - she spends an episode tied to a chair - she still performs an emotive, fully-expressive performance that is incredible.

But it falls to James Spader as Alan Shore to keep much of the program interesting and watchable. Where season two gave Spader a chance to stretch his acting wings through a series of obstacles for Alan (like him becoming afflicted with word salad), season three finds him slowly re-establishing his confidence as his character evolves out of the often smarmy characterization he possessed in the earlier seasons. Spader uses the relationship between Shore and Espenson to infuse more humanity to the character and this gives him a chance to perform more subtle emotions and it works!

The DVD set includes scant bonus features, in the form of two featurettes, one on the judges, one on the defendants. These are pretty disappointing for the money, prompting more causal fans to simply stick around and catch the show in syndication rather than buying it on DVD.

But honestly, the time to buy this set is now. It's hip, it's relevant and it's entertaining. It won't be long - one hopes - before it is simply historic. And when that happens, this set will be a disappointment as it does not even provide the fans with commentary tracks.

For other works featuring Mark Valley, please check out my reviews of:
Fringe - Season 1
Once & Again - Season 2
Once & Again - Season 1

6/10

For other television set reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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