{"id":855,"date":"2007-02-21T14:57:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-21T14:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/idolchatter\/2007\/02\/shatner-and-shore-good-lawyers.html"},"modified":"2007-02-21T14:57:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-21T14:57:00","slug":"shatner-and-shore-good-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/02\/shatner-and-shore-good-lawyers.html","title":{"rendered":"Shatner and Shore: The “Good” Lawyers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when I thought “Boston Legal” was going to forever fade into the kind of redundancy that was starting to plague this entire season, it took a nice break from some of the whimsical hijinks and sexual politics that have hurt the show this season and returned to the kind of compelling moral dilemmas that occasionally give the show a spiritual base, including:<\/p>\n

  • James Spader\u2019s \u201cAlan Shore\u201d defending a woman who liberated her father\u2019s plastinized (muscle-organ-filled skeleton) body from a museum exhibit;<\/li>\n
  • Shore\u2019s surprise opponent being none other than his old friend (and project) Jerry Espensen as Shore protects the employment rights of a UFO-believing therapist while being forced to choose between the success of his friend or his case;<\/li>\n
  • \u201cClarence Bell,\u201d the character who finds confidence in dressing and acting like a woman, being invited to deeper relational intimacy by his boss;<\/li>\n
  • Main characters \u201cDenise Bauer\u201d and \u201cBrad Chase\u201d attempting to move from their friends-with-benefits relationship towards the longshot of marriage and ending up in an insults-turned-sincere discussion of gender roles in modern marriage;<\/li>\n
  • William Shatner\u2019s \u201cDenny Crane\u201d attending temple and defending Lutheranism (sort of) as part of his own spiritual reflection.\n

    Yes, “Boston Legal” is a show that makes mockery seem mundane and whimsy seem well-mannered, but this list is a lot for a one-hour show to accomplish, and this one came through. <\/p>\n

    Crane\u2019s visit to temple borders on insulting to the Jewish audience, but his admission that \u201cto us Christians, Temple is a, uh, college\u201d is actually fair satire because too few Christians know enough about the Jewish faith to treat it as they do. Further, too few Christians know enough about their denominations, illustrated by his statement \u201cI know what we Lutherans believe; we believe in… Luther.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Chase\u2019s case that many successful working women actually would love to stay home and nurture healthy children seems so dramatically retro that it borders on insulting to Denise, but when he shares with candor \u201cyou\u2019re lost,\u201d her response is healthy and honest: \u201cI\u2019m scared.\u201d <\/p>\n

    The plasticity case pointed out the absolute dangers of alcoholism by visually depicting <\/span>how ugly a ruined liver looks while gently proclaiming \u201cpromiscuity heightens the odds.\u201d<\/p>\n

    And as usual, the deepest reflections came from Shore, who beat his friend by beating him up, hence the show\u2019s title of \u201cThe Good Lawyer.\u201d Shore was good at his job but he wasn\u2019t good to his friend, the all-too-often choice of litigators.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI want so badly to believe in God, not because of any words in the Bible or claims made by gospels, but because I suppose with our planet being polluted into extinction while country after country develops nuclear bombs coinciding with an unprecedented escalation in hatred while an entire continent is dying from AIDS and starvation as the rest of the world pretends not to notice, it\u2019s just not that easy these days to have faith in man,\u201d says Shore, the decided agnostic, before going on: \u201cI\u2019m not sure I if do believe in God, and even if I did, I\u2019m not sure he\u2019d be the same God who you believe in. But in the throws of doubt, I still do believe in man. I believe in man\u2019s innate sense of humanity, his potential for compassion, for reason, righteousness in his heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Now if we could just get the producers to help him realize that that ability for compassion, reason, righteousness and heights of humanity comes from God alone, then we\u2019d really have ourselves a show!<\/p>\n

    In the end, Shatner\u2019s Crane articulates a position probably held by all too many Christians who won\u2019t admit it but whose life hypocrisy reveals it:<\/p>\n

    \u201cBecause if you believe in God and it turns out there\u2019s no God, then there\u2019s no harm, no foul. But if you don\u2019t believe in God and it turns out there is one… you\u2019re screwed.\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cWhy then,\u201d says an intelligent Shore, \u201cdoes He allow for all of this suffering that goes on?\u201d<\/p>\n

    Hence the end of an admittedly risqu\u00e9 show that comes far closer to asking the kinds of compelling questions than many church services and bible studies lack, but were par for the course when Jesus walked the planet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Just when I thought “Boston Legal” was going to forever fade into the kind of redundancy that was starting to plague this entire season, it took a nice break from some of the whimsical hijinks and sexual politics that have hurt the show this season and returned to the kind of compelling moral dilemmas that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"\nShatner and Shore: The "Good" Lawyers?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/idolchatter\/2007\/02\/shatner-and-shore-good-lawyers.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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