A Man. And His Blog.

Thinking about the hour-long pilot longer than a day, I liked it even less. So I was expecting less than nothing for the second episode – which is why I kinda liked it. Despite some cheesy moments and terribly written dialogue, the episode was good in telling a story about a guy who has nothing, and a woman who tries to shows that guy he still has his life.

The story of Steve (Paul Schulze), being in prison for 22 years, and that as an innocent man, was alright at first, kinda went to the emotional side at the end, though I was expecting a “twist” about Steve actually being guilty or something. The fact that the writers probably didn’t even think about that twist lets me believe that they will never go into the darker direction of the show – Kate (Sarah Shahi) figuring out that her client is guilty and doesn’t deserve what Steve was about to get (or not get at the end). So, I’m waiting for the episode with a surprise like that, if I’m still watching FAIRLY LEGAL at the end of its season.

While the story involving Steve was somewhat lame, it was alright how the writers went from Steve not talking to anybody to Steve vandalizing the grocery store. I was just annoyed that Kate was feeling for that guy and risked her job and missing the reading of her father’s will just to help Steve. I was rolling with my eyes and getting dizzy, when Kate got arrested and was seen – again – with cuffs (I hope it’s not going to be a running gag in the show, because it is actually not funny anymore), and I couldn’t buy Kate’s feelings about not wanting to go to the reading. After all, it was her father’s will, and it is about her future. Her saying that the reading is the last proof of her dad being dead was a lame excuse.

The rest of the episode was lame as well. Lauren (Virginia Williams) fires her assistant and hopes to find a new one, she is still scared to enter Teddy’s office,a nd she has a case of her own, which we don’t know anything about. The two scenes of her mediation were stealing time, and brought neither additional character information for Lauren, nor an interesting story for the episode. Moreover, the writers seem to have focused on Kate only, with getting rid of the other characters in an instant – which is bad.

The episode was better than the pilot, but the series is still uninteresting. I don’t know how long I’m going to stick with it. 6/10

Kate is trying to talk with a baseball bat

In the water, no one can hear you scream

I shouldn’t expect anything from basic cable shows anymore. USA has a bad reputation with me, when it comes to original shows (not one show from them is on my favorite-list), and their shows seem to be boring every time. So, when FAIRLY LEGAL was announced, I shrugged with my shoulders. When I saw Sarah Shahi being the main character of the show, I opened my eyes a bit and developed interest in the show. And now, after the pilot, I don’t really want to return to that show.

I don’t know if the show was just boring, if the log line is boring, or if the pilot was actually bad. But with the exception of Sarah Shahi, FAIRLY LEGAL doesn’t have any reason of why I should continue watching. It is written as light as other USA shows, the characters were not properly developed like in most of the USA shows, FAIRLY LEGAL seems non-serialized like every other USA show, and it is one of the lawyer shows this season, which seems to be the only thing TV writers can do nowadays.

The biggest problem I’ve had with the pilot: The story was totally uninteresting. I didn’t care much about Kate’s mediator business with her stepmother Lauren (Virginia Williams) and her secretary Leonardo (Baron Vaughn), who seems to be her best friend, and I can’t accept the fact that Kate is still somewhat best friends with her ex-husband Justin (Michael Trucco). Even those few lines can predict the rest of the season: The writers will go into a Kate/Justin story, where the audience asks if the two are coming back together (alternatively Kate will be pissed, when Justin finds a new woman), the working relationship between Kate and Lauren will rock their personal relationship (as well as Kate will continue hate/love her stepmother, and still can’t accept Lauren’s behavior after the death of Kate’s father), and Leonardo probably won’t have any significant storylines in the series and continues to be just the nerdy secretary, who is BFF with Kate. And in the middle of all this: undeveloped episodic storylines about Kate handling cases outside the courtroom, and investigating them – and maybe she even gets into a conspiracy, when it comes to saving a politician out of the courtroom, because he allegedly raped somebody or whatever. You see, the first season is already super-predictable after just one single episode. Which is why I already don’t have any interest in following the show, because it is always the same…

But the pilot wasn’t so much terrible. Sarah Shahi really was eye candy here, and I loved some of the humorous moments with her (handcuffed at the bench, walking with a tether), but the rest was just awkwardly … uninteresting. I can’t even remember to be that bored during a pilot episode without any expectations. The cases of the episode didn’t help much either. First there was Douglas (Patrick Gilmore) and his DUI, the fights he had with his father about the company, and the final twist of Douglas being a transvestite – I thought that the twist was supposed to be funny, but it was even more awkward than Barack Obama being quiet during his State of the Union speech. Or the verbal fights between Brian (Sean Rogerson) and the threesome of fools, who botched his marriage proposal – not interesting, and the scene with the watch was supposed to be funny too? Here I couldn’t laugh, especially when it was revealed that Kate actually destroyed a unique Buffy watch.

The pilot didn’t work for me on so many levels, and the only interesting part of FAIRLY LEGAL is Sarah Shahi – the rest is absolutely not interesting for me. But maybe I will live to see a miracle, when the upcoming episodes are better. But for now, I can’t give more than 5/10, and the bonus points for Sarah Shahi are already included.

Sarah Shahi looking at her phone...

Gerald McRaney looking at Sarah Shahi...