As confessed last week, Boston Legal has been one of my favorite TV shows for years. And last night's series finale, while a bit schizophrenic in its story lines, was very Boston Legal.
The reason I posted about it last week was the last, big case to be tackled on the show -- petitioning the Supreme Court of the US to allow Denny Crane (William Shatner) to have access to an un-FDA approved drug for his Alzheimer's Disease. The question to be decided: why shouldn't patients who have a terminal and debilitating disease be allowed to decide for themselves whether they want to take a drug. Afterall, if their condition is terminal -- then what do they have to lose?
Woven among the other crazy things going on (a Chinese law firm purchasing Crane, Pool and Schmidt, plus Denny and Alan deciding to get married for financial reasons, plus Shirley and Carl arguing over having a church wedding....)....
Alan and Denny did go to the Supreme Court. The young woman who argued for the government, against Denny's access to the drug, made all the points I outlined last week. She covered the territory quite well, and bottom line, viewers without much knowledge of these issues would have understood them by the time she finished.
Then Alan did what he always does best -- made his argument from so many directions, with so much insight, and with such an emotional foundation -- that you had to really wonder, by the time he was finished, whether the justices might not rule in his favor, even though the law was squarely behind the government.
(As an aside -- what a fantastic job the casting people did of finding actors to play the justices! Brilliant!)
Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the final verdict was a tap dance. The setting and circumstances were hilarious, and the message delivered was that Denny, and Denny alone, would be given access to the drug. No violation of the FDA clinical trial approval process. No upset to the system. Just Denny. One can only wonder where that would have gone had the show continued. And, one has to wonder how often that actually does happen -- that a patient is somehow allowed through the back door to gain access to a drug that is not approved. I'm sure it happens.
Sadly, that's the end of this marvelous show that has never backed down from contentious issues, and has handled all opinions and points of view with the respect and depth they deserved. I truly hate to see it go.
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Photo © Evan Agostini / Getty Images
Great summary of a great show. Maybe a network will take the advice from one of the past episodes and see that we the viewers in a specific demograph is looking for a show just like this one. : )
We agree. We have faithfully watched this show, as well as the one it morphed out of, The Practice.
The comedy was sometimes a bit too much for me, but I loved it when they dealt with real issues and the situations surrounding them.
However, I record it and have not gotten around to seeing the final episode. Now my husband will think me psychic.
We also watch Dexter and Burn Notice when they are on, different, perhaps not as good as Boston, but unique in their own way. The first dvd of Dexter is worth getting from your library, I think. Oh, and if you are into library dvd’s, ‘Death at a Funeral’ is, to us, a classic.
Shame they cannot do show once a month to keep up the quality and allow writers to do other things to keep fresh.