If I were limiting my rating of this show to the realm of present-day American TV, I'd rate it a 9.5. It's the only show I go out of my way to see. And why? Because it's the only one that gets me worked up over the characters, in other ways than by having them murdered or suffering from some dire disease. Dramatic involvement has fallen out of fashion on TV in the U.S.--most shows are too cool to care--and so I take an old-fashioned satisfaction in becoming variously worried, relieved, angry, or cheerful about what the characters are doing and what is done to them. My suspension of disbelief is facilitated by a sharp cast and vivid direction, which puts emotional suspense and its concomitants--focus, pace, mood, foreshadowing--ahead of all else.
...And I have just now realized that what I'm describing, or working toward describing, is a seduction. That pinpoints the type of pleasure the show furnishes, and explains the slight suspicion it engenders. Watching it, I feel as if I'm being enjoyably had by a high-priced, attractive call girl who's very good at what she does; but it is what it is, no more. And so, though I count myself a fan of the show, I can't for a second regard it as serious drama, although it's endeavoring to pass as such. Apart from a strong satirical streak--more like marbling, really, since it runs through every part--what it is is soap opera of a fairly high order, showing genuine cleverness and feeling. Of course it bears only a tenuous relation to real life: the legal cases are resolved patly, in sudden courtroom revelations; the personal turmoils resolve themselves into neatly defined crossfires; and in between, one gets little sense of life as it's lived, i.e. continuously. What does Julianna Margulies do in her office all day? What do her kids do while she's at work? The show doesn't care much. It's concerned with the big scenes, the sweeping flourishes, the successive waves of crisis that batter its heroine.
Margulies' persona, probably even more than her performance, is what holds it all together. The series sets her off like a diamond, but she's the gleaming center. Somehow the actress seems universal: elegant yet earthy, modern but timeless; one can imagine her in any form in which a beleaguered heroine might figure, from Jacobean tragedy to telenovela.
...And so I keep watching.
...And I have just now realized that what I'm describing, or working toward describing, is a seduction. That pinpoints the type of pleasure the show furnishes, and explains the slight suspicion it engenders. Watching it, I feel as if I'm being enjoyably had by a high-priced, attractive call girl who's very good at what she does; but it is what it is, no more. And so, though I count myself a fan of the show, I can't for a second regard it as serious drama, although it's endeavoring to pass as such. Apart from a strong satirical streak--more like marbling, really, since it runs through every part--what it is is soap opera of a fairly high order, showing genuine cleverness and feeling. Of course it bears only a tenuous relation to real life: the legal cases are resolved patly, in sudden courtroom revelations; the personal turmoils resolve themselves into neatly defined crossfires; and in between, one gets little sense of life as it's lived, i.e. continuously. What does Julianna Margulies do in her office all day? What do her kids do while she's at work? The show doesn't care much. It's concerned with the big scenes, the sweeping flourishes, the successive waves of crisis that batter its heroine.
Margulies' persona, probably even more than her performance, is what holds it all together. The series sets her off like a diamond, but she's the gleaming center. Somehow the actress seems universal: elegant yet earthy, modern but timeless; one can imagine her in any form in which a beleaguered heroine might figure, from Jacobean tragedy to telenovela.
...And so I keep watching.