Canterbury's Law

I find Canterbury's Law, starring Julianna Margolies, really quite a good show. I haven't been able to watch it on my tv (something's wrong with my reception of the Fox channel), so have had to watch via the internet. In spite of the inconvenience (munching popcorn is somehow more difficult when I'm sitting up in front of a 17 inch monitor), I really like this show.

When I first read the description (renegade female attorney with own law firm represents the disadvantaged, etc. etc.) I thought, "oh, no, yet another formulaic series featuring overwritten and stale plots and trite representations of the woman lawyer." In fact, I passed on the first few episodes, and not simply because I couldn't get the channel. I just had no desire to watch yet another female lawyer series.

But I happened on the Canterbury's Law website, and decided to watch one of the episodes: it was "Sweet Sixteen," about two high school girls implicated in the murder of a classmate. The plot was of the "ripped from the headlines" sort, but it had a certain kind of originality. What really gripped me, though, was the way that Ms. Margolies and her costars work together--in particular Terry Kinney as the Deputy Attorney General and James McCaffrey as Frank. The complications in the plot, such as when the police execute a search warrant on Canterbury's house (thus, that Canterbury's personal life interferes with her professional one) can be overdone in spots. But the actors are first rate. Even when the D.A. is nasty, and could play the part as a pit bull, the actor holds back just enough, and Margolies snaps at him just enough, that we believe these two both have a history, and are both committed advocates (unlike the posturing passes for lawyering in other legal dramas). And the teenaged girls were great--they were real teenagers. When Canterbury succeeds in getting her client acquitted, the girl simply doesn't understand either the gravity of the situation she was in, or the the enormity of the pain her actions caused. She doesn't want to apologize to the mother of her dead classmate. She still "doesn't get it." That's real life. That's how many teens are.

So, I watched another episode, "Baggage," about a man who believes he is psychic. I liked this episode, also, up until the end. Canterbury uses rational methods of deduction to figure out who has set this man up for murder. At the conclusion, however, desperate for a clue to her son's disappearance, she asks her now freed client for help, and he has a "vision." The way the scriptwriters present his "vision" suggests that the "vision" is real. I have a problem with that. I would prefer that it be left ambiguous. Still, well-acted, and it explains a great deal about Canterbury's commitment to her clients and to the law.

The website needs some redesign. Fox has made it difficult for users to find and play particular episodes. The only episode easily available is the current one. That makes it hard for fans to replay favorites, and it makes it even more difficult for this show to find a following, which it should find. Fox has a winner here, and it should have more faith in Canterbury's Law.