Alan: "Here's to next season, my friend."
Denny: "Same night?"
Alan: "God, I hope..."
This was the closing balcony toast on the season finale of Boston Legal, and it looks like they'll be getting their wish: despite lackluster but consistent ratings, the series will return next year, in the same Tuesday night time slot (at least for starters...)
I must say that I'm happy for them... for awhile there I wasn't sure this wildly uneven but grotesquely fascinating series was going to survive beyond its second season.
There are plenty of good reasons to dislike Boston Legal. There are those predictably preachy statistics-laden speeches about current "issues" drearily delivered during the unrealistic courtroom scenes. There's the distracting and pretentious pseudo-handheld jittery camera work.
And then there's the confusing revolving door cast — from forgettable no-name youngsters who come and go without any explanation to curious ghosts from the prime-time past such as Alex P. Keaton, Magnum P.I., Betty White, and Murphy Brown who may linger for a week, a couple months, or all season — you never know.
But where else on TV can you find the winking Star Trek references, the startling leaps through the fourth wall, and, most important, the dynamic duo of Alan Shore and Denny Crane.
I could watch the beguiling, quirky, infectious chemistry between James Spader and William Shatner for hours on end... but unfortunately there's always the rest of Boston Legal to sit through in order to get to the "good parts."
So were there any good parts in the two hour season finale on Tuesday night? As usual, just enough to keep me begging for more... but there were lots of other parts too...
The opening credits were the first tip-off that something was amiss: two different titles were referenced with separate writers (and even directors!) for each — "BL: Los Angeles" and "Spring Fever." As the show progressed, it became clear that the "two hour finale" was actually a "mash up" of two completely separate one hour episodes, mostly unrelated to each other. This made for some awfully disjointed viewing at times, cutting back and forth between multiple story lines, characters, and locations, with barely a thread of continuity holding it all together. (The frequency and length of the commercial breaks didn't help any either — I counted four of them during the first half hour alone.)
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Article comments
1 - Ty
Two complete seasons now and still no cameo appearance of another ATTORNEY from "The Practice"?????
That's almost as utterly PATHETIC as the fact that BL will be out on DVD before any season of The Practice hits DVD.
2 - Stephen V Funk
That is odd, isn't it... kind of like how you can get multiple seasons of Dukes of Hazzard and Sanford and Son on DVD but only one season of The Larry Sanders Show... well, not exactly like that but you know what I mean.
Anyway, apparently there will be a "special edition" version of the Boston Legal DVD set released on 5/23 available only at Best Buy (ugh) that will include a bonus disc with four episodes of The Practice: presumably the ones leading up to the end of that series and the start of BL. So -- it's a start at least, even if it's a pathetic one.
I was also thinking -- with the Boston Legal DVDs coming out, maybe someone could re-edit all of the episodes to cut out all the extraneous crap and focus entirely on Alan and Denny... You could probably make four or five decent hour long episodes out of the entire first season. Any takers?
For more info on the "bonus disc" Boston Legal set:
3 - NancyGail
As someone who has written reivews of this show since the beginning of this season, where did you get three marriage proposals? Denny married Bev, and Daniel proposed. I assume this is satire? Otherwise, the wording is off in places.
4 - Stephen V Funk
There were three proposals in the season finale alone (not including Bev from previous episodes):
1. Denny to Courtney/Jeri Ryan (it was quick, but it happended...)
2. Michael J. Fox to "Guido"
3. Denny Crane to Alan Shore... at last... their courtship has been building to this all season (I especially loved the mambo dancing)... he calls it "plug-puller" but I think there's more to it than that... don't you?
cheers!
5 - Stephen V Funk
I bought the Boston Legal DVD Season 1 + bonus "The Practice" DVD yesterday from Best Buy. It was priced at $34.99.
There was a small, round sticker on the front of the packaging that mentioned the bonus DVD exclusively available from Best Buy. That was the only difference I could see from the "regular" packaging without the bonus DVD. I'm guessing that it is true that the only way to get this extra disc is through Best Buy, and once they are out of them that will be it (unless you find overpriced unopened copies being resold on ebay, etc. of course.)
The bonus DVD itself is simply stored in a little paper envelope tucked inside the packaging. The other DVDs are packaged in the "ultra-slim-line" format, with two per case in two of them and one in the third for a total of five Boston Legal DVDs. While they certainly won't win any awards for innovative or attractive packaging, I was at least happy to see that the DVDs are NOT double-sided.
"The Practice" episodes included are the final four from Season 8. There are no bonus features or commentary on this disc. I watched the first one included, "The Firm," last night. It's amazing to remember how different everything was at that point -- including almost everyone other than Denny and Alan employed at Crane, Poole, and Schmidt (which wasn't even called that yet, I don't think), the look of their offices, and even Denny Crane's mannerisms (calling everyone "soldier" for example... glad they dropped that...)
6 - annelias
The season finale was great! Does anyone know the artist and song title of the music playing when Denny and Alan are on the balcony at the end?
It is great!
Thanks.
7 - Cathy Marine
Same as #6 questio above. Name of artist and song in the final balcony scene with Denny & Alan.
Thank you.
8 - Stephen V Funk
According to the helpful folks at the Boston-Legal.org forum, it was:
David Gray: "Babylon" (from the album "White Ladder")
Cheers
9 - ipodstar
what was the song playing when Michael J. Fox proposed 2 denise??