"Canterbury's Law" (2008) TV series

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Creator:

Dave Erickson

Seasons:

1

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A television series centered on Elizabeth Canterbury (Margulies), a tough-minded defense attorney who isn't afraid to push boundaries in order to protect innocent clients.

Plot Keywords:

Punctuation In Title | Character Name In Title

Awards:

Nominated for Primetime Emmy.

Cast

Julianna Margulies	...	Elizabeth Canterbury (6 episodes, 2008)
Ben Shenkman	...	Russell Krauss / ... (6 episodes, 2008)
Keith Robinson	...	Chester Grant (6 episodes, 2008)
Trieste Kelly Dunn	...	Molly McConnell (6 episodes, 2008)
Terry Kinney	...	Deputy Attorney General Zach Williams / ... (5 episodes, 2008)
Aidan Quinn	...	Matt Furey (5 episodes, 2008)
James McCaffrey	...	Frank Angstrom (4 episodes, 2008)
Charlie Hofheimer	...	Ethan Foster (3 episodes, 2008)
David Call	...	Martin (3 episodes, 2008)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Certification:

Singapore:PG

Filming Locations:

Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Apostle

Julianna Margulies in a Sea of Mediocrity

I was looking forward to this because I'm a fan of Julianna Margulies' previous work.

What a disappointment!! It's all I could to keep my eyes open through the pilot.

The script was clunky and clearly would have been better served by being a two-hour pilot. The characters were poorly drawn, with very little given to the actors to use. The photography was very poor, with many shots extremely grainy or out-of-focus or plain badly lit.

But most galling was the poor directing by Mike Figgis, who joins a longer and longer list of "feature directors" doing a very poor job directing a pilot. The show had no visual style to speak of, unless shaking the camera and underlighting all the scenes in Canterbury's Office is supposed to pass off as a style.

On the plus side, James McCaffrey was excellent as usual, so was Julianna, but Ben Shankman killed every scene he was in. He looked like he was fresh from amateur hour.

I might give it another try, but I doubt this will last more than a few episodes.

Yet another disappointment in a horrible season for network TV.