In a season that has seen lots of excellent new television get the axe (okay, I'm referring pretty much exclusively to Fox's Chicago Code which was murdered in its infancy like so many other promising Fox programs), an NBC show that no one really took seriously has returned this fall for a second season of twelve announced episodes (season one ended after a dozen airings, usually a symptom of an early demise). It's not that I didn't enjoy Harry's Law last season-- I did. And it's not that I'm not watching it this season-- I am. But how did it survive its lukewarm IMDB score (7.2) and anemic Metacritic (48) rating, not to mention all the real critics and its own viewing numbers? It's a secret probably only known to the NBC brass and whatever they're smoking. But I have a few theories.
My first theory, and perhaps the only valid one, is simple: Kathy Bates. If you don't know her but think she sounds or looks familiar, you can spend the half an hour it takes to scroll through her portfolio on IMDB. She is perfect for the role of Harriet “Harry” Korn, a copyright lawyer who has her mid-life crisis a little past middle age and quits her cushy job to open a criminal defense practice in the ghetto of Cincinnati. Bates handles the role with masterful subtly, blending curmudgeonly mannerisms with empathetic grandmothering to bring out the character's own struggles, despite her character's rare service as the central point of any given episode. Harry is a deceptively complex character, searching for purpose, for justice, and possibly even for love, but Bates and the show's writers prevent the show from being about that exclusively, which might be why it's still afloat.
Harry's Law takes place in the relatively unexplored-by-primetime setting of Cincinnati, Ohio. The city is less important for being Cincinnati and more important for not being New York or Los Angeles. The setting does not have a life or significance of its own, which could be considered a weakness of the series, but really adds to the feeling that Harry is “lost” in her own life, searching for her own importance.
One of the primary facets of the show is the art of the closing argument. Law & Order has been here before, as well as countless other television shows and movies before it. But much like the epiphanies in House, the viewer can safely expect that right around 48:00, Harry's Law will deliver a lengthy block of closing arguments. These speeches are finely crafted rhetoric, highly stylized to fit the lawyer delivering them, and clearly heavily rehearsed. Generally, the prosecution presents his or her argument first, and it is often so solid that the viewer finds her or himself agreeing, and wondering what Harry could possibly say to overturn it. And then she does, to everyone's delight. Is this feeling enough to keep people coming back? Maybe.
What could have been a very gritty show about the pressures of late/post-middle age and practicing criminal law in urban centers instead takes a turn for the silly, which is probably another key to its survival. In the first episode of the first season, Harry sets up her practice in an abandoned shoe store, and one of her assistants takes up shoe sales on the side, calling the office “Harriet's Law & Fine Shoes.” This mechanism is blessedly removed in the second season, but still stands as evidence that the show does not take itself too seriously. This is not Law & Order; it isn't even CSI. This is a show about an old lady who happens to have a law degree, and makes forays into criminal law surrounded by characters whose sometimes silly exterior belies a complex inner nature. It has its own vice, separate and distinct from other procedural legal shows without any attempt at emulation.
Clearly, I don't have the answers. Harry's Law is not a bad show, but it's not on the same level as much of its competition, and in the cutthroat world of primetime television, its renewal was surprising. It feels like a show that would be more at home on the USA network, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it picked up there in syndication. Without turning this into a second season review, I will add that the new season has taken some steps to establishing the show a little more seriously, adding some new characters and upgrading Harry's digs. I don't know how much hope there is for the show going forward, but there is one thing I learned from the esteemed Chekhov; if Harry doesn't use the enormous revolver she is seen wielding in most of the promotional material, the show is as good as dead.
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