PopSyndicate.com

Ten time Emmy award winner Steven Bochco proves that mediocrity happens even to ten time Emmy winners with Raising the Bar.

There was a fantastic line in Shawshank Redemption when Red (Morgan Freeman) tells Andy (Tim Robbins) that everyone in Shawshank is innocent. As I watched episode after episode of Raising the Bar, this was all I could think of. Every client the defense took on was innocent. There were no guilty men or women in the show, or no completely guilty person.

But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. Raising the Bar is a legal drama that attempts to show all sides of the legal system, the public defenders and the prosecutors, fighting each other for justice in whatever form they believe it takes. We also get to a peek inside the mind of the judges, and are meant to believe that, at the end of the day, they’re all friends, knocking back beers in the same bar, having a laugh and just being altogether great people. The premise alone is enough to make me want to call bullshit, but then there’s the cast.

Jerry Kellerman (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) - the defense’s grandstanding, morally outraged righteous fighter. His character has no more depth than that; every scene he’s in, every motivation he has is fighting the good fight. Coupled with his tendency to pop off at the mouth whenever the Judge (Judge Trudy - that’s right, not Judge Judy, though one couldn’t tell as the character so obviously calls the brash, irrational woman to mind - played by Malcolm in the Middle’s Jane Kaczmarek) makes a ruling he disagrees with. In the real world, the world this show is supposed to be based upon, no judge worth their salt would tolerate this punk.

We also have Roz (Gloria Rueben, ER), who runs the public defender’s office. She a strong, successful African American woman. Teddy Sears plays Richard Woolsley, aka Richie Rich, the product of a wealthy family who takes the crap PD job just because he wants to do some good,  Roberta Gilardi (Natalia Cigliuti, who, among other projects, was on Saved By the Bell: The Next Class, and how could I pass up that tidbit given the main character was Zack Morris on the original show?) who plays the PD with a drug addicted abusive husband.

If you’re anything like me, you’re starting to see a pattern here. All of the characters have a distinct lack of actual personality - instead, it is as if someone put a bunch of character clichés in a hat and drew it out. I picture Steven Bochco sitting at his desk with a baseball cap, murmuring, “Okay, judge’s assistant Charlie,” He then rummages through said hat and pulls out a slip of paper that says ’gay man in closet’.  And just like that, bam! We have a character.

So here’s an episode’s usual setup. Jerry has a client who is innocent. Jerry fights hard for said client, though the DA’s office have people - his friends, no less - who fight hard to convict. Sometimes the methods used by the DA’s office are a little less than honorable, and Jerry points this out to Judge Trudy who makes an irrational decision, which causes Jerry to go off on an excruciatingly inappropriate bit of filibustering. Judge Trudy remains unswayed until she has a heart to heart with her assistant guy, Charlie, and then (typically) comes to the right decision. Meanwhile, one of the PDs fumbles their way through their own personal drama - husband on uppers again, interoffice romance, yadda yadda. The show is shallow, and in no way represents the legal system.

It’s not all bad news, though. While other, more sensationalist shows (coughLaw & Ordercough) go big in every episode, Raising the Bar does have a sense of temperance, which doesn’t necessarily mean dull. Season one watched like a genuine first season, with show runners and actors finding their footing. There is something that appeals in the show, though I couldn’t tell you if that’s just my crime drama addiction talking or not. Occasionally there were a few jokes that genuinely made me laugh - tidbits of promise.

And my instinct proved correct. Season two has premiered strong, with the ADAs fighting temptation, the addition of a new judge who makes Judge Judy - I mean, Trudy - look positively boring, and Jerry, with his snappy new haircut, brings the little bit of hotness to the show now that the killer smile that made Saved By the Bell such a hit isn’t hidden behind all that hair.

The DVD set comes with some great extras, like bloopers (my favorite bonus feature) and deleted scenes, commentary, a roundtable discussion with the cast, and a featurette about the real life of a public defender.

Though season one was a little underdone in some parts and overdone in others, it does have the marks of something that needs a season to hit its stride. Here’s hoping.

2