Review of L.A. Law

Less than two dozen reviews for a show which, like the Buffy/Angel series which was yet to come, essentially changed the face of prime time drama? I am very disappointed. In the 60 and 70s, TV dramas (eg- Perry Mason, Mannix) were about the stories not the characters. If you wanted to learn about the characters, you had to infer the information from things that happened in the main narrative. Every now and then the writers might give the viewer a treat and actually do an episode about the main character himself/herself, but these were few and far between. It was of course just the opposite in daytime TV which is why for literally decades there was a clear divide between the two narrative styles. Shows like this one by Bochko (and his HILL STREET BLUES, which preceded it) paved the way for the type of work that Whedon (and others) would deliver later. Ultimately we would end up with programming in the current generation like Arrow (also reviewed by this scribe in the IMDb) where the line between dramatic narrative and soap opera has become indistinguishable, and no one, not even the Head Writer, really knows where the series is headed. But that is now. This was then. Aside from the usual weekly stories about amoral lawyers working for amoral clients, we had something here that was very new to the decade -- backstory. And we had it in spades. It also did not hurt that Harry Hamelin was voted at the time "sexiest man alive;" and that in an early episode, Bochko presented the viewer with an office party where the short, dull, nerdy lawyer (nicely played by Michael Tucker) got drunk and made a pass at the tall blonde Nordic-goddess lawyer played by Jill Eikenberry. And the pass worked! Viewers all over the US were gob-smacked by this scene, which so deftly played against type. And they were gob-smacked yet again when the the press agent for the show revealed that in real life the two, Tucker and Eibenberry, were husband and wife. Bottom line, unforgettable show, and a true piece of TV history.