After five seasons on ABC, Boston Legal said goodbye last night. As you might expect, the David E. Kelley series went out in its own quirky fashion. Though the TV show has had its up and downs, some of this season’s episodes have been the series’ most outrageous and poignant. Did it really have to end?
Boston Legal is a direct spin-off of Kelley’s previous ABC legal drama, The Practice. The TV show revolves around the legal workers at the Boston firm of Crane, Poole and Schmidt. Alan Shore (James Spader) is the office’s most outspoken lawyer who ends up taking on the most outlandish and controversial cases. His best friend is firm senior partner Denny Crane (William Shatner), a once-legendary litigator who exhibits outrageous behavior due to the advancement of Alzheimer’s. Other partners include Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen), Paul Lewiston (Rene Auberjonois), Carl Sack (John Larroquette), and, most recently, socially-inept Jerry Espensen (Christian Clemenson).
Other ongoing characters have been played by Mark Valley, Julie Bowen, Gary Anthony Williams, Tara Summers, Henry Gibson, Constance Zimmer, Monica Potter, Rhona Mitra, Saffron Burrows, Meredith Eaton, Taraji P. Henson, Justin Mentell, Ryan Michelle Bathe, Betty White, and Craig Bierko.
The “dramady” debuted on October 3, 2004 on ABC. Spader and Shatner won Emmys for their guest work on The Practice and they and several others went on to win awards for Legal. For its first season, the show averaged 12.5 million viewers. The ratings slowly declined each successive year and last season, Legal averaged 9.8 million. Though that’s still a decent audience, ABC announced that season five would be the final one.
It was initially reported that Kelley had to fight to get a shortened fifth year to wrap things up. Then, it was spun as a mutual decision. Now, that the series has finished, the story doesn’t sound quite as amicable. He told Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, “ABC didn’t want us back. It’s as simple as that. They didn’t even want us back for this year at all. We had to fight to get back on with 13. It’s not a product they care to market.”
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Though the series has attracted a respectable number of viewers, the complaint has often been that the show’s audience skews older. In last week’s episode, Kelley took aim at this point of view with crazy Catherine Piper (White) suing the networks for age discrimination. Carl Sacks (Larroquette) argued that the 50+ generation has a healthy share of the country’s disposable income and has more discerning tastes than the younger set who are satisfied watching reality TV and youth-obsessed shows. He argued, “Old people, the ones with intelligence, don’t want to watch that crap. We’re fed up. The networks may think we’re dead but we’re very much alive with working brains. Give us something to watch, dammit!”
Kelley believes the demographics are only part of the reason why Legal received its walking papers. The series has received minimal promotion this year and the show’s creator has doubts that the network execs have even watched it. He notes, “Five years into the show, if anyone has ever seen the show at ABC, they’ve yet to bring it to my attention.” They happily haven’t interfered with the content of the show but they haven’t really gotten behind it either.
Part of the reason may be that the network has a limited financial interest in Legal. While some of ABC’s big hits are produced by its in-house studio, Legal is made by 20th Century Fox. Kelley says, “Even though our numbers are solid, not huge, I think the conventional wisdom at ABC, and I don’t know this, but I’m guessing they continue to believe they can develop their own product and get that [rating] number and then also share in the profits.”
Shatner, for one, is sorry to see the show go. He told USA Today that the series was guilty of “being on the wrong network… I don’t think NBC or CBS would have canceled us.” Next fall, we’ll get to see how the peacock network treats Kelley’s next show which is slated to revolve around a father/daughter legal team.
The creator believes that Legal could have run for a sixth season but is thankful for the opportunity to give the show a proper send-off. “I feel satisfied we had run a good course.” That fact is certainly in part due to the devoted viewers. He notes, “By far of all the shows I’ve done, it had the most devout audience. Certain series got higher ratings or a bigger constituency that liked the show, but I can’t remember ever having a fan base that truly loved the show as much.” Stay tuned! 
Image courtesy ABC.
I loved Boston Legal and I am now enjoying the re runs. Great acting. Funny as all get out.
It probably would’ve been fine with four seasons. The liberal preaching was too much. Almost as bad as SNL is now.
As a pretty staunch conservative, I pretty much disagree with you. SNL has sucked for decades and turned out no recognizable talent in this millennium. Boston Legal, despite some of the actual law arguments, was damn funny and entertaining throughout the entire series. I didn’t watch it when it was current but just finished binge watching it over the past few weeks. When I got to the end of the final episode and it didn’t autoplay into another, my reaction was basically “WHAT?!! THAT’S IT?? I NEED MORE!!!” I obviously wasn’t patting attention to the whole season/episode tally.
Maybe people got tired of all the liberal preaching. Conservatives are gun-toting and addle-brained (Denny Crane) and all the liberal court arguments are virtuous. Yawn…I love the acting and the actors and some great and fun plots (watching on CD) but I got tired of it all after awhile. It’s a good way of teaching people about the issues, but it should not be all one-sided.
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It is a shame not to continue a great show.
A disappointment to a lot of people including myself…
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I watch the re-runs regularly and can’t understand how they ended such a fantastic show. The show covered so many issues that we deal with all the time and some that no one wanted to talk about in the past. My mother had developed dementia in 2005 and it seemed people didn’t want to admit how hard it can be on a family but Mom stayed at home with my brother and sister. She died in 2007 at 93 and people actually said to me: you should have put her somewhere. This show brought out that this disease is a… Read more »
Where are your heads, oh, silly me. I know, this is America……you didn’t make millions enough . But along with that, it is clear to me that there is a conscious intent in removing anything on tv that has intelligence and free of gross violence or sex. So just how much money do you want to bring the best show ever made back to the consumer, you know, those folks that pay for everything!!!
Loved this show n was gutted When it ended, it had me in stitches with the antics of denny n Alan. What a waste.
The sense of humor combined with controversial current issues topped with the element of some really great chemistry between the cast William Shatner and James Spader just captivate you watching their relationship evolve.We would drop everything to watch the courtroom dialogues and speeches made by Denny and Alan. The network is stupid or crazy or both to not support and further develop this series. I guess as usual mindless brainless drama wins out over anything with some substance that requires you to have some intelligence to watch. ooo lets go watch “twilight” or “judge Joe” non reality made to be… Read more »
Along with Madmen, this show demonstrates that tv need not be dead. Were it not for intelligent and well-written shows like these I would assume that the networks are capable only of SpongeBob sorts of programs. I hope that AMC picks it up and runs with it.
Probably not gonna happen.
I like that show because it teaches how to love and I like to asked question about Alan and the woman he love and when she said I was to have baby with him and they will see each other again
I just finished watching all of the 4th series. What a shame such a good show was cancelled. Wish it would come back. I now have the final series 5 to watch then what.
Boston Legal,should have been given another chance! It still is, one of my favorite comedies. I couldn’t wait to see who Denny was going to shoot next!!! Hopefully, another network, will pick it back up. If not, there’s always re-runs and DVD!!!
2 years ago, Boston Legal talked about the housing market, how it was going to crash, how it would affect the whole world. When it seemed the entire US was pro war, pro bush, Boston Legal questioned it.
It was a very sofisticated show, that sustained a combination that is very hard to come by, excelent research, brilliant writers and award winning actors.
I join other fans in wishing that another network takes advantage of ABC’s mistake and use it to their advantage.
I enjoyed it until I started going to law school and saw how grossly unrealistic it actually was. Also seemed to get more and more preachy which was annoying. I didnt bother watching the finale.
Hi all, So very nice to see other dedicated fans of this great piece of TV ingenuity. It is a great and inexorably painful shame to see something so thought provoking and entertaining being put down to rest. Is there no way another TV network could pick this show up from ABC? Many of my friends and I have this conspiracy theory that suggests that this is one more TV show that attacks the american ideals and the government media watchdogs have picked up on it. Trying to keep the masses dim to the reality of what is actually happening… Read more »