The Law Firm has a nice premise: young attorneys trying real cases and getting the boot if they screw up. The last one gets a big firm job or a wad of cash, whatever.
Unfortunately, this is what the Law Firm is: evidence that, without Donald Trump, the Apprentice would have already folded. Roy Black is a terrific trial lawyer, but he's got the camera presence of a lump of wet moss. His emotionless delivery and bizarre arm movements were bad enough, but his attempts to build drama at the end before "dismissing" a candidate were laughable. What this show lacks -- the thing that really drives the Apprentice -- is the boardroom scene where the candidates face off and get grilled by the Donald. A couple of isolated comments like "he could have done better" or "I made a mistake" just aren't going to cut it. Black's got to get in there and start grilling them, hard.
To make things worse, we learned almost nothing about the candidates, except of course that they all plan to win and think the people around them are a bunch of idiots and losers. None of them particularly stood out as a good lawyer or even an interesting personality. When someone got "dismissed", I didn't really care -- I had no vested interest in any of the competitors.
And the real problem is, it's impossible to do justice (so to speak) to an actual case when it only gets 15-20 minutes of actual camera time. This show would work a lot better if they'd come up with one big case, split them into teams, and let them work through the various aspects as the weeks went by. Then, at the end, the final two would get to try the case (one on each side), and the winner of the case would win the competition.
In short, don't waste your time. I'd like to think this show is evidence that the reality TV craze is headed for the dumpster at last, but I'm sure that more dreck will be right behind it.
Rating: 0 out of 10.
Unfortunately, this is what the Law Firm is: evidence that, without Donald Trump, the Apprentice would have already folded. Roy Black is a terrific trial lawyer, but he's got the camera presence of a lump of wet moss. His emotionless delivery and bizarre arm movements were bad enough, but his attempts to build drama at the end before "dismissing" a candidate were laughable. What this show lacks -- the thing that really drives the Apprentice -- is the boardroom scene where the candidates face off and get grilled by the Donald. A couple of isolated comments like "he could have done better" or "I made a mistake" just aren't going to cut it. Black's got to get in there and start grilling them, hard.
To make things worse, we learned almost nothing about the candidates, except of course that they all plan to win and think the people around them are a bunch of idiots and losers. None of them particularly stood out as a good lawyer or even an interesting personality. When someone got "dismissed", I didn't really care -- I had no vested interest in any of the competitors.
And the real problem is, it's impossible to do justice (so to speak) to an actual case when it only gets 15-20 minutes of actual camera time. This show would work a lot better if they'd come up with one big case, split them into teams, and let them work through the various aspects as the weeks went by. Then, at the end, the final two would get to try the case (one on each side), and the winner of the case would win the competition.
In short, don't waste your time. I'd like to think this show is evidence that the reality TV craze is headed for the dumpster at last, but I'm sure that more dreck will be right behind it.
Rating: 0 out of 10.