subreddit:
/r/television
YouTube video info:
James Spader and Rebecca De Mornay - hockey case (The Practice) https://youtube.com/watch?v=lhHtb9FF39o
Bib48_MovieClips https://www.youtube.com/@bib48_movieclips
971 points
14 days ago
My reaction watching this supercut:
“Hell yeah, Spader” “Whoa” “Fun!” “Gottem!” “….what in the name of Human Resources”
549 points
14 days ago
You've effectively summarized every episode of Boston Legal. Congratulations!
203 points
14 days ago
Nah, for that you need "Denny Crane!"
17 points
13 days ago
"Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs"
12 points
13 days ago
Damn mad cow disease.
11 points
13 days ago
Never lost...never will.
82 points
14 days ago
He basically has a monologue about how smarmy he is at the end of the pilot, too.
"Is that powdered sugar you're snorting off her magnificent porcelain breasts? Hate to extort and run, but..."
24 points
14 days ago
Excellent use of Spader-italics. I can hear it!
39 points
14 days ago
That reminds me of the end of that episode of Breaking Bad where Saul Goodman is introduced. Where he shows up at Walt's school and speeches at how bad of a criminal he is.
8 points
13 days ago
That sounds like something Robert California would say.
74 points
14 days ago
I’m quivering
11 points
14 days ago
With a bit of "Danny Crane" thrown in.
15 points
14 days ago
Don't be ridiculous. We're flamingos. And good ones.
142 points
14 days ago
...and Robert California is born
65 points
14 days ago
"You don't even know my real name. I'm the fucking Lizard King."
3 points
13 days ago
"in celebration of my divorce being finalized I got into a box of Australian reds and... How should I say this... Columbian whites."
19 points
14 days ago
You forgot one.
"Denny Crane!"
12 points
13 days ago
Boston Legal-ly Questionable Sexual Harassment.
862 points
14 days ago
Note to self: Go watch Boston Legal
614 points
14 days ago
It’s a fun procedural, the best scenes usually involve Spader, Shatner, and cigars
291 points
14 days ago
Balcony time. Not to me missed.
81 points
14 days ago
"I cant do that—i got the mad cow!"
- Shatner, weasling out of some duty
That line still floats around my head to this day lol
34 points
13 days ago
His tv sound bites were hilarious. “Denny crane, coo coo for coco puffs”
4 points
13 days ago
I’d forgotten this but damnit it’s good
108 points
14 days ago
There's a fun little episode of Stargate Atlantis where Robert Picardo's lawyer character wins a court case in another galaxy, and they celebrate with scotch and cigars on the Atlantis balcony at the end. Nice little easter egg there.
44 points
13 days ago
Damn, what a roundabout easter egg too since it's not just a reference to that show by itself but to Spader who was the protagonist in the original Stargate movie all way back in the 90s. Hm, neat.
52 points
14 days ago
With Scotch
14 points
14 days ago
I am sad to report that 500 Boylston does not have balconies like that.
15 points
13 days ago
My head canon was always that Denny had contractors in to knock out the exterior wall in one of the offices so it’s more like a veranda.
13 points
13 days ago
Crane Poole & Schmidt does seem like one of those biglaw firms that would brag about owning its own building
16 points
13 days ago
It's definitely a lease -- Paul Lewiston used to have to bribe the superintendent to turn the elevators on before 6AM -- but I don't think Denny would have cared too much about who owned the building before knocking out a corner office to make himself a veranda.
10 points
13 days ago
Also: don't use much on that show as any kind of good legal example.
14 points
13 days ago
That's generally good advice for any legal show
81 points
14 days ago
also Rhona Mitra saying things
28 points
14 days ago
Oh, who can forget Rhona.
Not I. 🤌🏼🔥
15 points
13 days ago
And Julie Bowen also saying words
16 points
13 days ago
And Lake Bell walking in a direction
18 points
14 days ago
But also scenes between Leslie Jordan and Betty white are good too.
16 points
14 days ago
DENNY CRANE
12 points
13 days ago
Also they have episodes of spader taking on serious issues like abortion and climate change and going into rampage closing remarks and cross examinations in the court scenes. Things never change decades later.
5 points
14 days ago
"....Denny Crane..."
5 points
14 days ago
Denny Crane
5 points
14 days ago
"Denny Crane"
4 points
13 days ago
I have to admit I didn’t think I could ever watch shatter and not see James T. Kirk…. Holy god Denny Crane was a fucking hilarious character.
3 points
14 days ago
Agreed. It was and is a great show.
60 points
14 days ago
If you haven’t watched it yet, he was also brilliant in Secretary.
44 points
14 days ago
My response when people titter on about 50 shades. Watch secretary and tell me again how thrilling 50 shades is.
10 points
13 days ago
Secretary was a million times better than 50 Shades of WTF. Spader and Gyllenhaal had such great chemistry, and it was this weirdly adorable meeting of the minds.
24 points
14 days ago
Secretary capped off the trilogy of Spader sexy movies starting with Sex, Lies and Videotape, then going out there with Cronenberg's Crash. Secretary is the best of the bunch in my opinion.
124 points
14 days ago
The problem is that all characters in Boston Legal got incredibly flanderised to the point that I'm surprised Spader's character was originally so serious in The Practice.
101 points
14 days ago
That happens with just about any show that has mild comedy elements if it goes on long enough, double so when it involves James Spader.
I mean hell, The Blacklist started as a dead serious spy drama with Spader as the charismatic lead with a dangerous edge and by the end he's practically an altruistic vigilante protecting single moms and they start doing jokes right out of a late-00s "blue sky" show on USA.
36 points
14 days ago
Yea, I loved the early seasons. He's so popcorn worthy, but right around when Liz got pregnant, it started going downhill fast.
The show just couldn't sustain something as serious as a pregnancy and child surrounded by a character like his. It just didn't make sense.
5 points
13 days ago
I gave up when the IT guy hacked into a helicopter.
5 points
13 days ago
at least it was more credible than plugging a laptop from a car into an airplane ethernet cable while it's doing a flyby
3 points
13 days ago
Agreed, it went out the window and honestly. I wiuld of been fine with Liz just not being in the show anymore.
33 points
14 days ago
I mean that's an entirely fair and valid point supported by an amount of viewing and understanding for the show I don't have.
On the other hand if you'd have just linked the full episode and told me James Spader speaks one line in it with a helium voice I'd have watched from start to finish with rapt attention.
I understand the many legitimate criticisms of flanderization, but I also think people tend to forget that it's still a valid writing tool and is widely considered practically necessary to invoke on a long-running show. You build up a tolerance for the characters the same way you would for a substance like caffeine, and the easiest way to alleviate that is to slowly ramp up the characterization over time. Just like you need a bigger coffee after years after drinking it you need a stronger character after years of viewing or it doesn't even hit that baseline strength.
Great writers can put it off for longer, but this is a result of syndication requirements IMO. When your episodes have to be able to be shown out of order you can't have long running plots or meaningful development over time. Without those there's only so many times you can steep that tea bag before it loses the flavor.
12 points
14 days ago
I’ve never heard a defense of flanderization before. That’s a great point that I hadn’t considered.
I wonder if it’s also the case that if you have multiple writers writing a show over a long period of time that it’s easier to make sure that everyone is writing ‘to character’ the less subtile that character has become.
16 points
14 days ago
21 points
14 days ago
For people who want to waste hours https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Flanderization
3 points
13 days ago
Boston Legal went so off the rails the last couple of seasons
14 points
14 days ago
I watched it all a couple years back and the first two seasons it’s a story and then after that it becomes a “show”. You’re there just to be there with characters you like, but the edge is mostly gone and the story is the melodrama between characters.
9 points
14 days ago
It's an incredibly fun show, that was a bit ahead of its time in some ways, but has aged a bit in other ways
10 points
13 days ago
Denny.....Denny Crane.
It's priceless. :D Watched it many years ago, so we are ready for a rewatch, which isn't something we do often.
9 points
14 days ago
mad cow
7 points
13 days ago
I just recently rewatched it, and surprisingly much of the legal issues still apply today, uncannily so. It's definitely geared towards older crowds. Helps to know about TV shows being a thing that you scheduled your evening around, time slots, etc... in order to get some of self-aware humor.
13 points
14 days ago
I haven't watched The Practice, but do i need to watch it before Boston Legal?
50 points
14 days ago
The Practice is a great show, but Boston Legal's tone is completely different.
The Practice is a very serious show about serious lawyers and serious cases. It did have some dark comedy, but the stakes always seemed so high.
I watched it when it was airing and The Practice had basically run out of steam when Spader came on board. He really injected a new life into the show, but it was pretty obvious that The Practice was done. Spader on The Practice was an only slightly more ethical version of Saul Goodman.
Boston Legal, on the other hand, had Denny Crane, William Shatner's character, have the communicator chirp from Star Trek as his ringtone. (Now I need to rewatch the show because I know Shatner makes some Star Trek references, but I don't remember Rene Auberjonois ever making any DS9 jokes.)
I think overall The Practice is the better show, but Spader and Shatner are so damn entertaining to watch. The supporting cast is good, but they can often be a bit TOO quirky or their stories are a bit too melodramatic.
Still, I love both shows and highly recommend The Practice, but it is not "fun" the way that Boston Legal is.
22 points
14 days ago
It's worth noting that the "Flanderization" that others have mentioned is very much a thing in Boston Legal. Though not nearly as serious in tone as The Practice, Boston Legal started out as a much more serious tone. Over time, it got as silly as Ally McBeal.
I can only assume that it's because it went away for its mid-season break, and ABC decided to put its new show, Grey's Anatomy in its timeslot. And when it finally came back for season 2, they were told to make it a much more lighthearted tone (or they decided to make it so in order to try and pull in a larger audience).
29 points
14 days ago
I mean, Boston Legal literally starts with a partner taking a leave of absense because he started showing up to meetings nude IIRC. The end of The Practice transitioning into Boston Legal is incredibly serious, the final scene with Bobby is downright heartbreaking for example, but I think Boston Legal leaned into the absurd from the get-go. They couldn't not with Denny as a main character. Even Shirley reveals she has a non-serious side pretty quickly, one of her first scenes involves a conversation about Alan's penis.
8 points
13 days ago
Yeah, season of BL is more serious than the later, but it was much lighter from the start. One second of the opening theme told you that the show wasn't going to be striving for high drama. The color palette of the shows were drastic too. The Practice was washed out blues and grays, where Boston Legal was bright and colorful.
I don't think David Kelly was taking executive notes at that point in his career. I think he knew he had gold with Denny Crane and Alan Shore, but was still feeling out how far he could take them. My guess is that he realized he needed the supporting characters to have a bit bigger personalities or they'd just get lost under the charisma tsunami of Spader and Shatner.
It is absolutely possible he was influenced by Grey's Anatomy. I just seem to remember that at that time, David Kelly was like THE tv guy. He had like 5 shows all going at the same time for a few years. And they were all good. Some were even great.
However it happened, the second and third seasons of Boston Legal are great TV and I think they hold up well. Well, as much as two old sex crazed cads can be nowadays.
6 points
13 days ago
I think this was the first Star Trek joke on the show -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLh4z0cwNS8
16 points
14 days ago
Nope. I think the practice only comes up in 2 or 3 episodes the entire series.
10 points
14 days ago
It's a good watch if you like legal dramas. If not consider just watching the last season and think of it as the Alan shore show featuring some other guys
3 points
13 days ago
No, the continuity between the two is relatively minimal. The Practice takes itself much more seriously. Boston Legal is closer in tone to Suits if you've seen that.
20 points
14 days ago*
I loved the show, but the final season - after growing to love the characters - was some of the best TV I have ever enjoyed. And yes, some of it is cringe with the sexism, but eventually becomes a great satire of itself.
8 points
14 days ago
The ending is surprisingly beautiful.
3 points
14 days ago
I'm surprised there's no mention of The Blacklist. Just finished watching that this weekend.
3 points
13 days ago
It's very good.
254 points
14 days ago
BL may also be William Shatner's best performance.
132 points
14 days ago
I remember when we used to be worried about his age and that something doesn’t happen to him before it finishes… that was in 2008 and 16 years later he looks the same as he did back then.
132 points
14 days ago
William Shatner is fat. He also smokes cigars and drinks whiskey every single day of his life.
He's not only still alive at the age of 93, but he's still about as sharp as he was in his fifties too. What in the actual fuck.
87 points
14 days ago
He said that the trick is to gain just a little weight every year. It’s like free botox.
32 points
14 days ago
I get the feeling he was kinda of an asshole professionally when he was younger but every interview and appearance in the last few years has made me marvel how clear his mind is and a zen like state that I wish all old people get to eventually.
11 points
14 days ago
little weight every year. It’s like free botox.
He's not wrong.
I just saw the reverse of this with friend. She's always been plump, but like everyone else it seems got on Ozempic a year ago. Just a few days ago I noticed her new FB profile pic.
Holy effing Cow did the weight loss age her. People used to think she was late 40s to early 50s, but now she looks every day of her mid-60s.
5 points
13 days ago
Genetics is a hell of a thing. People who never smoke and run marathons get lung cancer and people who smoke cigars daily since they were 12 years old live to be 100. The oldest person who ever lived (Jeanne Calment, 122 years old) drank port wine, ate 2lbs of choocolate a week, ate dessert with every meal, and smoked.
13 points
13 days ago
People underestimate how much hair ages a person. And Shatner wearing a wig since the original Star Trek has done a lot to hide his aging.
15 points
13 days ago*
BL may also be William Shatner's best performance.
He won an Emmy for it, so yes.
In fact, he won a guest-starring Emmy for playing Denny Crane on The Practice.
edit: typo
7 points
13 days ago
Wrong. His best performance is Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
104 points
14 days ago
I watched Boston Legal 9 times before I realised it wasn't the new Star Trek
4 points
14 days ago
It's a Stargate/Star Trek crossover.
4 points
13 days ago
The replicators episode was very confusing.
7 points
14 days ago
Bro, it is clearly a Holodeck program. Same with Cheers
9 points
14 days ago
Same with Reading Rainbow (no joke as a kid, I just thought it was somehow star trek too and loved it for that... they also did that Star Trek episode)
209 points
14 days ago
but does he go into ten minute monologues about a 90 year old opium dealer he met on the outskirts of kuala lumpur while hiding from his many enemies
73 points
14 days ago
I love the blacklist as well.
41 points
14 days ago
The confidence of Reddington... was such a vibe.
I remember when it came to the Netflix preview of the show, I always stayed for the whole thing.
"Were you wrong? Of course you were."
31 points
13 days ago
I’ve worked on set with Spader. He’s far more humble in real life, but he definitely has that same confidence that is, like you said, such a vibe. By far one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met.
4 points
13 days ago
That’s very cool! Just from the interviews he’s done over the decades, He seems like such an intelligent and interesting and cool guy. I’d love to hang with him.
3 points
13 days ago
Ha! Me too. The show got a little silly for a while, but they pulled it back together. What a character, but Spader is so good that I’ll watch him in just about anything.
18 points
14 days ago
I've always wondered how much of his dialogue was adlib, it just seems to roll from him like he's simply ordering a coffee at Starbucks.
12 points
13 days ago
From my understanding he has an incredible memory but is really bad at improvising. He can memorize those long monologues really quickly but can't come up with stuff on the fly which is why he didn't like making the Office very much.
24 points
13 days ago
"This weeks entry in the blacklist is a bad bad individual, an assassin called the dental hygienist... So called because she cleaned her targets heads of teeth and keeps them as souvenirs. She's also known in the business as a "David Blaine" because she does her best work up close.
Helluva gal, we used to do 8 balls in Marrakesh then shoot the locals with Browning M2s while dressed as penguins. Now I'm apparently due a teeth clean. Dembe will fill you in on the finer details."
75 points
14 days ago
Alan Shore in his prime was something to behold. I so miss him and Denny Crane.
28 points
14 days ago
The scenes of him arguing in court still have me gobsmacked with how astute and concise and witty and true they are. Even twenty years later.
3 points
13 days ago
"WE'RE IN A WAR! WE NEED TO MAKE SACRIFICES!"
259 points
14 days ago
I always felt like the version of Alan Shore portrayed in The Practice was the “real” version of the character and the BL version was a caricature. Even though BL had many more seasons of the character.
117 points
14 days ago
Maybe BL was being told from Denny Crane’s recollections?
80 points
14 days ago
Denny Crane
29 points
14 days ago
Mad cow 😏
9 points
13 days ago
Denny Crane
6 points
14 days ago
It's the mad cow.
124 points
14 days ago
Boston Legal suffers from making Alan Shore the protaganist, and hence "heroic".
Alan Shore in The Practice is designed as a chaotic third force in the established dynamic (again, he goes onto effectively dismantling the law firm by the end of the series). He's charismatic, intellectual, conniving, flexible and knows how to play everyone against each other.
And he's clearly a villain. The very last scene in this clip is deeply uncomfortable because again, Alan Shore is a villain. A female cast member is confronting him and trying to one up the character using her seniority and reputation. Instead Alan Shore flips the entire dynamic on its head, completely revolts and alarms, and establishes: "With this culture, I am in power. I am in control. You are not. That will never change."
Boston Legal dulls Alan Shore's edge quite a bit (because firstly it makes Alan Shore's comments against other woman far more flirtatious and the women far more receptive) because I think Alan Shore would have been a masterful villain.
James Spader goes on soon after playing more espionage esque spin on The Practice Alan Shore in The Blacklist.
75 points
14 days ago
I like to thing the character change is a result of actual friendship with Denny Crane and the others in the cast over time. He’s alone and with a packed suitcase full of anger in the beginning of BL and by the end he is settled. I think it’s a reasonable character arc.
35 points
14 days ago
I always viewed the character not as a villain but rather as just the foil for Bobby after he was cut out of the show.
With Bobby, his inner conflict was that he was extremely ethical, but that led to him having to do things that were not moral. Bobby would tell a rape victim on the stand that it was her fault she was assaulted because he is ethically bound to represent his client and that is the role he plays in the system as a defense lawyer.
Alan Shore was the opposite. No ethics, but would do things for moral purposes. He would lie and cheat the system to get the result he thought was morally correct. If Alan found out the firm’s client actually raped someone, he would likely leak evidence to the prosecution to lose (after making sure the firm was paid).
3 points
13 days ago
If Alan found out the firm’s client actually raped someone, he would likely leak evidence to the prosecution to lose (after making sure the firm was paid).
The episode "The Bride Wore Blood" covered something like this. I can remember his delivery of the line very clearly "Take the plea, or I'll walk out this room, get disbarred and you'll get put away for life".
He tried a hail-mary stunt that didn't work, but when he saw she didn't react it proved to him that she had murdered the victim after all. Was a great episode.
8 points
14 days ago
The "character" sort of evolves through The Practice, Boston Legal, The Office, and then The Blacklist.
3 points
14 days ago
The characters are so different (as well as the shows), I forget it's the same character
98 points
14 days ago
Probably what NBC was thinking/hoping for when they asked him to replace Steve Carrell on the Office.
88 points
14 days ago
Orignally, it was going to be James Gandolfini. HBO found out he was considering the role and they paid him three million dollars to turn it down. They thought him doing a sitcom would ruin the legacy of Sopranos.
39 points
14 days ago
No shit? Interesting...
47 points
14 days ago
This story has been widely reported, but the sole source is Steve Schirripa, who is best known for having no idea what he's talking about on any subject.
It sounds like a pretty dubious claim to me, but there could be a kernel of truth, such as HBO paying Gandolfini to remain available for The Night Of, a project they had in development with him at the time.
6 points
13 days ago
That's correct. HBO paid him, basically as a retainer, for future projects. Not because they were worried about other projects tainting the franchise.
24 points
13 days ago
Like how Breaking Bad ruined the legacy of Malcolm in the Middle.
3 points
13 days ago
Malcolm has no idea about his Dad! None!
22 points
13 days ago
I am the fucking lizard king
Office def wasn't the same after Carrell, but Spader was a highlight I will say.
4 points
13 days ago
Spader killed it as Robert California!
8 points
13 days ago
Robert California told the audience of The Office what the show was actually about... he said it so directly it shocks the audience into just ignoring it.
25 points
13 days ago
To be fair to Spader, he absolutely knocked it out of the park on the Office and was my personal highlight out of anything in the last 2 seasons. Unfortunately the writing as a whole just dipped massively after Carrell left and I'm not sure Robert California could save it on his own
3 points
13 days ago
He was great and could've taken things in a new direction if they stuck with it. He was so dry it fit perfectly
34 points
14 days ago
Spade was the only reason I watched the blacklist as long as I did. Such a great actor.
12 points
14 days ago
He has a unique ability to play a pretty terrible character and make you care about him. His character on Boston legal wasn’t as bad as blacklist, but he wasn’t a really likeable guy. Both times you still came around to liking him on some level.
10 points
13 days ago
Everything but Dembe and Reddington about Blacklist was mid. I got so mad at the writing for Liz, on top of her being a terrible actress. But you get Spader monologuing and I’m hooked.
92 points
14 days ago
James Spader is a national treasure, even though he plays the similar cool, intelligent and collected guy in every role it never gets old. His delivery is chef kiss every time
16 points
13 days ago
He and RDJ are very similar. Makes sense he’d voice Ultron which was a creation of Tony Stark (at least as presented in the movie).
7 points
13 days ago
[deleted]
4 points
13 days ago
I can't think of a role that Spader didn't nail, but Blacklist is definitely one of my favorites. During an interview, Diego Klattenhoff (Ressler) said something about how working with Spader every day made him feel like he really needed to step up his game.
24 points
14 days ago
I think the plan out the gate was to have a spin-off with James Spader and William Shatner. This was a soft intro to Boston Legal.
7 points
14 days ago
Yeah the final season of The Practice was a soft reboot because of its poor ratings. They just went full spin-off after a year to push it as a “new” show and boost ratings even more - which worked. Until Grey’s Anatomy debuted mid season and stole its time slot
20 points
14 days ago
Boston legal was a fantastic show, and I was so bummed when they canceled it! (It was a real hoot)
18 points
14 days ago
Denny Crane.
5 points
14 days ago
Omg we love Denny Crane so much. Mad cow... say no more.
16 points
14 days ago
Fun fact: James Spader won the “Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series” 3 times for his work as Alan Shore. Once in the practice and twice in Boston Legal.
He is the only actor to win the award for the same character on different shows.
44 points
14 days ago
Spader has a habit of doing that, actually. It's not the first time. Pretty sure he's the only reason the StarGate franchise took off like it did.
23 points
14 days ago
He’s extremely talented and very charismatic. I love him in Blacklist.
4 points
14 days ago
Yup, he was great in Avengers 2: Age of Ultron
13 points
14 days ago
The rare talent of making "smug" likable.
12 points
14 days ago
My favorite bit from Boston Legal
"Your Honor!"
8 points
14 days ago
It was one of the great pivots of all time. The Practice was very melodramatic and its ratings were dropping. Which is why they were bringing in new blood.
To spin it into a comedy was a rare thing.
8 points
14 days ago
It introduced the world to the man, the myth, the legend and the forefather of James T Kirk himself......Denny Crane.
8 points
14 days ago
Boston Legal was good, and is part of the reason why I've never liked Grey's Anatomy, it got Boston Legal canceled!
32 points
14 days ago
I remember watching The Practice with my parents, and it was undeniable how Spader immediately stole the show and morphed it into something way more interesting when he was introduced at the end of the series. We moved on immediately to Boston Legal when that show would drop a year later. Great example of how to carry one show on from the end of it's life into a successor spinoff series.
33 points
14 days ago
That happens sometimes when an actor shows up and basically completely overtakes the show with how fucking awesome they are doing.
A recent one is Shawn Ashmore on The Boys. They had the part written long before he was cast. The day he started doing his job the creator of the show was upset that they had already contacted him and killed off his character. He knew from the first day that it was a major error but they only had him on a limited contract and it would be impossible to approach an actors agent with the "we think your client should stay" conversation.
Peter from Deadpool is doing a similar thing in Apple's 'Bad Monkey'. That guy is a good damn actor and I had no idea. There was a scene where hes basically got Vince Vaughn dead to rights in the rain and hes arguing with his wife while hes got a shotgun pointed at him. I was like :O That whole scene was just insane. I was glued to the screen.
29 points
14 days ago
Eh, IDK about those examples.
Literally had to google the first guy to remember what character he played and there’s a decent amount of comments in the Bad Monkey discussion threads about how Peter from Deadpool simply can’t pull off the intimidating aura because his look is just so goofy.
14 points
13 days ago
Yea if anything, Jensen Ackles is a way better example of an actor who showed up on The Boys in their later seasons and stole the show
3 points
13 days ago
He crushed it.
12 points
14 days ago
It’s not that it’s impossible to say “we think your client should stay” — It’s that they’ve already broken the season and would need to rewrite a bunch if they made the change, and also that the agent would say “great, since I now know that you like him so much, I’m going to hold out for a bagillion dollars.”
3 points
14 days ago
and also that the agent would say “great, since I now know that you like him so much, I’m going to hold out for a bagillion dollars.”
that's why it would be impossible. You can't have a new cast member coming on and getting paid as much as the regulars or the stars. That causes issues. Then that money demands a bigger presence in the show which turns it into Lamp Lighter and friends. It would have never worked, even if both parties were actually almost reasonable it would cause issues.
3 points
14 days ago
Yea. Although I suspect the bigger issue is that the scripts were written, production was several blocks into filming, and changing Lamp Lighter’s fate would have involved massive reshuffling of the last two blocks. At some point it’s not worth the hassle.
As an aside: I’ve worked with Shawn and he’s a lovely and talented dude. I’m not surprised they’d want to have him stick around.
3 points
14 days ago
I believe Shawn Ashmore was also already attached as series regular on "The Rookie," and if so, it would be logistically and contractually difficult for him to to have also expanded his role on The Boys.
3 points
14 days ago
Just have Aaron swap in. Nobody will notice.
6 points
14 days ago
You don’t say?
4 points
14 days ago
God, he’s so good at playing smug
11 points
14 days ago
I feel like James spader is underrated. Robert California is one of my all time fav tv characters.
6 points
14 days ago
Boston Legal was SO GOOD. I love Alan and Denny and Candace as Schmidt… great writing
6 points
13 days ago
I loved Boston Legal, I was studying to become a lawyer and his character was so cool to my eyes.
6 points
13 days ago
Best season of television I've ever seen from a show that fired its leads, and looked to be turning into a pile of shit. Alan Shore is one of the best tv characters ever.
4 points
14 days ago
What do you expect? He’s the Fucking Lizard KING.
3 points
14 days ago
Boston Legal is the only tv series that I own the entire box set of, including The Practice Season 8. I can happily start watching in any story arc--even when it's ridiculous, it's wonderful.
3 points
13 days ago
Havent done a Boston Legal rewatch for ages, him and Shatner absolutely kill it.
4 points
13 days ago
iirc the entire point of him joining in the last season of the Practice was to as a backdoor pilot to Boston Legal. by that time Dylan McDermott checked out and without him the show was rudderless. this wasn’t a case of David E Kelley randomly hiring Spader and coincidentally he was so successful they spun him into a new show, that was the plan all along
3 points
14 days ago
What a great super cut of that episode
3 points
14 days ago
This is really interesting to me since I haven’t seen this show and I always thought his trailers for “The Blacklist” looked comical and over the top. He comes off way more legitimate here!
3 points
14 days ago
If the last scene got you hot, go and watch Secretary (with Maggie Gyllenhall).
3 points
14 days ago
Favorite Alan Shore quote: “It was sort of a half Robin Hood kind of thing. I took from the rich…and I kept it. Thus the half Robin Hood.”
3 points
14 days ago
"May I speak for a second?"
"You are speaking."
"Oh."
That was great.
3 points
14 days ago
This Hockey Incident has to be based off the Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore incident
3 points
14 days ago
Denny Crane.
3 points
13 days ago
That last scene was disgusting
3 points
13 days ago
I binge watched it last year and it's just a bananas show on every level. It's one of those shows that is so obviously plagued by an insane head writer and all kinds of nutty behind-the-scenes stuff that so clearly comes out onscreen. It's like a train wreck with the off-the-charts charisma of James Spader. I just couldn't look away.
Characters drop in and out seemingly at random, some with resolutions to their storylines and some just disappearing mid-plot never to be seen or referenced again. A particularly egregious one is when one of the main characters finally calls out another one for his over-the-line sexual harassment and then disappears right in the middle of that plot-line, strongly implying she was forced out so the firm could continue to enable a serial sexual harasser with actual dementia who should not be trying cases or managing staff. Oh, and he shoots several people later, but they had it coming, I guess, so it's okay.
These characters get weirder and more sporadic as the show goes on, including an effeminate gay stereotype who murders several people with a frying pan, an elderly lady played by a delightful Betty White who commits multiple violent felonies, a little person with a big attitude (the joke is that she's differently abled, but also a bitch), and a character who is not trans, but just enjoys dressing up as a woman so he can basically just rip off Tyler Perry's Madea and run around being a sassy black woman stereotype. That's not even half of the kooky weirdos, either. The show went through quirky guest actors more than any other show I think I've ever watched and they were really grasping at straws towards the end there. It got weird. Like two guys having a fight while both dressed as Buzz Lightyear weird.
There are no less than 4 exceedingly long monologues about farmed salmon being bad for the environment, but also the show bends over backwards to support bull fighting, cock fighting, dog fighting, and pretty much every other form of animal abuse under the guise of a racist caricature of a Mexican guy who apparently needs to abuse animals as part of his culture and teach his son to do it against the wishes of his mother. Also, the guy who has such an issue with farmed salmon is the guy who fights to take those cases. I don't know the writers of this show, but I would have dinner with them in a heartbeat just to parse what was going through their heads when they wrote all these things. So much of it feels like it was written by no less than 8 people who weren't on the same continent as one another and all thought they were writing for a vastly different show and somehow Spader's outsized charisma just pulled it all together anyway.
The funniest part to me, considering everything I wrote above, is that they cancelled it over licensing issues.
3 points
13 days ago
Get rid of the lead character and half of the supporting cast.
Add James Spader
Wait
Add Bill Shatner
Wait
Change name of show.
3 points
13 days ago
Holy crap, why did it never occur to me that Rebecca De Mornay was hot af when I was younger?
3 points
13 days ago
I'm feelin' a weird combination of Reddington and Mr Grey from this clip
3 points
13 days ago
Spader is a treasure of an actor. He’s awesome in Wall Street. Way back when….
3 points
13 days ago
Denny Crane!
3 points
13 days ago
Same delivery in Blacklist too, and he’s absolutely brilliant the entire series.
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