January 24, 2010

TV: The Deep End (ABC, Thurs 8)

Four beautiful young lawyers, fresh out of law school, go to work for a prestigious Los Angeles law firm, where they pair off with one another, the paralegals, and the clients, and occasionally do a little bit of legal work. In short, this is to the law as Gray's Anatomy is to medicine.

There are some good actors on hand -- Billy Zane as the managing partner, known to one and all as "the Prince of Darkness;" Broadway veteran Norbert Leo Butz as the folksy mentor, clearly enjoying the opportunity to slum in the TV mines for a big paycheck; Matt Long as the earnest newbie whose loss of innocence will clearly be a major plotline -- and even though none of them are given anything particularly challenging to do, they are skilled enough to keep things moving briskly along without giving you too much time to laugh at the implausibilities.

I have a terrible weakness for legal dramas, so I'll keep watching for a few weeks to see if things develop in an interesting way. I can't say I'm extremely optimistic, but if the soap opera stuff develops well, it could become a cheesy guilty pleasure.

And oh, yeah, Ben Lawson, who plays another of the newbie lawyers -- he's the one to whom all the ladies are irresistibly drawn and who can't keep it in his pants -- is yummy with a capital yum.

No comments: