Week of July 31: We Have Reached a Verdict.....

The American Bar Association has published its list of the 25 greatest legal television shows. "L.A. Law," which ran on NBC from 1986-94, is ranked #1 on the list. The show starred Susan Dey, Harry Hamlin, Jimmy Smits, Corbin Bernsen and real-life husband and wife Michael Tucker and Jill Eikenberry. It won the Emmy for Best Drama Series four times.

Number 2 on the ABA's list is Number 1 on mine: Perry Mason, which starred Raymond Burr, Barbara Hale, William Hopper, William Talman and Ray Collins, and ran on CBS from 1957-66. The show has been mentioned at length on this blog.

The ABA's list has some interesting selections, including "Night Court" as #10. That show, also on NBC, debuted as a mid-season replacement in 1984 and lasted until 1992. Comedian Harry Anderson played Judge Harry T. Stone, an offbeat leader of the court. He, Richard Moll, who played the large bailiff Bull Shannon, and John Larroquette, who played the skirt-chasing assistant prosecutor Dan Fielding, stayed throughout the run of the show. Selma Diamond was the much-loved bailiff Selma, always with a cigarette in her mouth, a habit that killed both actress and character during Season 2. Charles Robinson, Marsha Warfield and Markie Post joined what would become the cast that would carry the show through most of its run.

Ranked lower were "Judging Amy," a successful show, and "The Trials of Rosie O'Neill," a not-so-successful show, both for CBS. "Judging Amy," starring Amy Brenneman and Tyne Daly, ran from 1999-2005, and focused more on the personal lives of the characters than their professional lives. However, the show won a lot of fans for the work of the two leads, as Judge Amy Gray and her mother, social worker Maxine Gray; Daly continued the Emmy success streak she'd started on "Cagney and Lacey" with one for Best Supporting Actress for this show.

Alas, the story was not so happy for Daly's "Cagney and Lacey" co-star, Sharon Gless with "The Trials of Rosie O'Neill." Gless played the title character, a public defender. There were curious sidelights - Rosie being seen talking to her therapist (played by Gless' real-life husband and show creator Barney Rosenzweig), and another character who was an Orthodox Jew. Though the show had a strong supporting cast that included Ron Rifkin and Robert Wagner (and one guest-star appearance by Daly) , it limped through two seasons.

Here's a link to the whole list:

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/the_25_greatest_legal_tv_shows

The ABA doesn't mention, but I will, two other series. One, "Sweet Justice," starred Melissa Gilbert and the great Cicely Tyson as small-town lawyers and ran on NBC for one season. The show never really found its footing or an audience.

The other, which kind of leaves the network-television barrier for this blog, is Lifetime's "Any Day Now," which starred Annie Potts and Lorraine Toussant; Toussant's character was an attorney. The show ran four seasons. That and the yesterday-and-today storylines that included the civil rights movement make the show worth a mention.

With that, court is adjourned.

See you next week. Until then, Happy Viewing!