On November 25 the last episode of The Shield aired. This past Monday saw the series finale of Boston Legal. Both shows won Emmys, but they never really received the amount of respect that was due to them. Yes, The Shield was critically acclaimed and fans of the show represent a good number but, at the end of the day, I cannot help but think that twenty years from now it will be CSI that will be the face of this era’s crime-style show. Which is a shame because The Shield is probably one of the best dramas of the last twenty five years, regardless of genre. Boston Legal, on the other hand, is a different breed of horse.
My wife and I will be the first people to tell you that we stayed away from Boston Legal from the get-go. Not because it inherently looked bad but because David E. Kelley was our entertainment nemesis. His shows would start out great, then falter a bit, and then become so terrible towards the end that we hated ourselves for having started watching the show in the first place. Ally McBeal—charming, quirky first season which started to become unbearable midway through the second season. The Practice—a few good seasons before the roof caved in completely. Boston Public—mostly a ridiculous show but still watchable early on but then suddenly became so horrendous we were practically slapping each other away from getting to the cutlery first so that we could stab our eyes out. What is even more ironic about our eventual addiction to Boston Legal is that it was a spin-off from the last few episodes of The Practice, when James Spader’s Alan Shore character and William Shatner’s Denny Crane were introduced. Even though both of these characters were the only saving grace of the show we respectfully declined the invitation to watch Boston Legal. We had been burned too many times by Mr. Kelley.
By fluke, we caught an episode late into season two and we liked it so we started watching the show regularly but always ready to jump overboard at the slightest moment of frustration. We ultimately wound up buying the season one and two DVDs of Boston Legal before season three premiered and we were hooked. Boston Legal became one of our favorite shows. James Spader, William Shatner, and Candice Bergen were all perfectly cast as their individual presence was able to navigate the show through ultra-quirky and serious scenes.
Though Boston Legal did suffer from setbacks from time to time (it still fell victim to Kelley’s penchant for introducing and writing off characters at the drop of a hat) they were surprisingly minor when compared to Kelley’s m.o. It was a smart, funny show that always found time to tackle itself (the self-effacing jokes made by characters to the viewer about the insecurity of the show were always well-packaged) and some social commentary, no matter how over the top it was. We will miss Denny and Alan’s balcony cigar- and scotch-soaked conversations at the end of each episodes. They were two very entertaining flamingos.
As for The Shield, there is really too much to say. If I knew someone else who watched every episode, I would probably record a two hour podcast talking about the show. Every season was stellar but the season five finale was particularly shocking. When one of the Strike Team members (the Strike Team is the specialized unit based in a Farmington, CA precinct that is the show’s main characters, led by Michael Chiklis’ Vic Mackey) is killed it sets off a series of events that is not fully put to rest until the series finale–which was season seven.
The Shield not only made for great television but it dealt in moral gray areas in such a way that it almost seemed literary. Vic Mackey could have driven Dostoevsky or Aristotle crazy with how to reconcile a character’s questionable morality with humanity. The story arc for Shane Vendrell was nearly perfect and the endpoint for Ronnie was almost as tragic as Lem’s.
History will probably coronate Tony Soprano as television’s first step into the “Don Corleone Corollary”—the idea that the inherently bad person is found to be likable in spite of their overwhelming flaws. Tony made the bigger splash but Vic was infinitely more well-rounded and complex (Tony was The Sex Pistols, Vic was The Clash). And, unlike The Sopranos, the producers of The Shield never had contempt for their audience and mailed in the last few seasons of the show. The Shield was phenomenal from start to finish and the finale was spot-on perfect—nothing too flashy in the closing minutes but perfectly appropriate.
Our Monday and Tuesday nights won’t be the same for awhile.