Daniel's TV Blog

Boston Legal ended it's five year run last night with a Christmas episode and a wedding. Two weddings actually. Murphy Brown got married to Dan Fielding and Captain Kirk got gay married to Alan Shore. I think the best way for TV shows to end is with a wedding and we got two. Plus they returned to the Supreme Court and got bought out by the Chinese who then dropped Crane from the name of the firm. The show ran for 101 great episodes and the most cast changes of any show I can think of. The last season had a trimmed down cast of only six including the four who were married and the British chick and the guy with Asperger Syndrome. Those two were dating in the last few episodes.

But the big story of the last episode was the same sex marriage of two straight men, Denny Crane and Alan Shore. With Denny's health deteriorating, he wanted his best friend Alan to both handle his medical decisions and inherit his vast estate. Of course there is a major flaw with this plot line. DoMA, the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 prohibits the federal government from recognizing any same sex marriages which are legal in any states, such as Massachusetts. So Alan will get no additional tax benefit as Denny's spouse in the transfer of wealth. But other than that huge flaw, it was a great end to a great series.

Labels: Boston Legal

Last night SGA had bottle episode. A bottle episode is one episode of the season that is produced for with the absolute minimal amount of money. Very few special effects, no special guest stars, and no location shoots. This is often done as a clip show. Most shows, I'm looking at you Star Trek, do them in lame or cheesy ways. For some reason Stargate: SG1 did them very well and now so does Stargate: Atlantis. The format for the clips this time was a trial of the Atlantis team for crimes against the people of the Pegasus Galaxy by a new coalition that has recently formed. Rarely do clip shows have significant character development, but this one did. Mr. Woosley, the current head of the Atlantis Expedition and the Emergency Medical Hologram, got to mount a defense for the Atlantis team. Not only did we get to see him use his high powered attorney roots, he also adeptly maneuvered the politics of this new council and Atlantis come out ahead in the end. We see now how the wormy civilian bureaucrat became the head of an intergalactic scientific and military expedition.

And the end of the episode Mr. Woosley and Col. Shepard shared a glass of Scotch and a cigar on the balcony of the control tower and just like the end of every episode of the current best courtroom show, Boston Legal. And of course Mr. Woosley and Denny Crane each have origins in Star Trek so there are even more parallels. I give the episode high marks.

Labels: Boston Legal, Stargate: Atlantis