Has anybody watched "Harry's Law"?

donna723

Well-Known Member
They just showed the second episode of this new series last week and I'm thoroughly hooked on it now! It's on Mondays on NBC at 10pm/9 Central time. It's Kathy Bates as a bored but off-beat patent lawyer who leaves the firm and opens her own store-front law firm in a really bad neighborhood, complete with local characters. It's both funny and moving at the same time.

I very, VERY rarely watch network TV and I only watched it the first time because Kathy Bates starred in it but I won't miss it now! I LOVE the character of Harry (Harriett). Kathy Bates was on the late night talk shows last week and was saying that the part of Harry was originally written for a man, but she loved the character and stepped right in to the part and wouldn't let them change a thing! In last weeks show she was, at one point, talking very eloquently and professionally with a client, then the next minute she's whipping a pistol out of her desk drawer and shooting a rat that ran across the floor! I really hope this one doesn't go the way of many other series that I really liked ... as soon as I really lilke them, they're cancelled!
 
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DDD

Well-Known Member
I've seen the promos and it looks like something I would enjoy. All I have to do is stay awake until eleven. Doesn't sound like such a hard goal, lol, but lately with the "bug" hanging on...I'm ready to get my zzzz's before ten. I really like her, too. DDD
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
I've been watching it and I really like it. Gives me a night watching the same channel instead of trying to remember, too.
 

svengandhi

Well-Known Member
I like Kathy Bates (one of my all-time favorite movie scenes and quotes is the parking lot scene from Fried Green Tomatoes) and I watched the show with great interest. However, as a trial attorney myself, I found the courtroom scenes contrived and unrealistic. If any attorney I ever knew, myself included, conducted ourselves with as much disrespect for the court and opposing counsel as she did, if we ever blurred the lines between what is permissible to say and argument for the sake of drawing a mistrial, we would be in custody for contempt of court and I don't even do criminal work! I also had very mixed feelings about the outcome of the trial - jury nullification (the practice of pandering to jurors' fears and feelings so that they will decide a case based on emotions and not on the law) is wrong and that's what she was doing. The woman committed an armed robbery and Kathy Bates told her to jump bail and flee during her trial - that's illegal and any attorney who does that should be disbarred. It makes interesting TV but it's not the real world. It also makes my job as a trial attorney more diffcult because people come to jury service with these totally wrong pre-conceived notions, mostly that a trial will be over in the time it takes one episode of a show to run.

I'll probably still watch it, because I do like KB so much and it's a treat to see her on TV, but if you listen hard, you'll hear me screaming at the screen during the trial scenes.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
LOL Sven...I can understand your dilemma. On the whole, I think this country has developed a huge case of "CSI Fever". We expect all law enforcement to happen exactly the way it happens on primetime TV. Even I want to scream at the news people when they are reporting crime details...well folks, why dont you bring in Bones and let them sift through all the soil and take it back to the Jeffersonian and find the all the little bone fragments and then in just 60 short minutes you will know exactly who killed that little girl and how and why! LOL. Booth will tell you!

I do watch Harry's Law. I had to get over my complete aversion to Kathy Bates from Misery. I had this violent ptsd thing about her where every time I even heard her name or saw her face, that scene from Misery where she slammed that sledgehammer into those ankles just flashed into my mind. It was really awful. But she has changed so much and I watched enough of the pre-show commercials that I really thought I would like the show. I also like David Kelly's work so I sat through the first one and I like the show. Now I can forget Misery...lol. whew.

Thankfully, I do know the difference between crime drama and real life work.
 

flutterby

Fly away!
I'm hooked. I know there is no way an attorney could behave that way in court, but I'm watching for entertainment. To me, it's just putting into a show the things we want to say and do sometimes, but can't. :)
 

donna723

Well-Known Member
I know too that you couldn't get away with a lot of that in a real court room but I just really enjoy the show. She says what we all WISH we could say and she gets away with it! I love the way she can body slam someone verbally - best I've seen since the character of Julia Sugarbaker on the old "Designing Women" TV series! And I love the way she can take all the digs about her being a woman or being older or being heavy and hurl it right back at them and impale them with it!
 
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