and he's not an organ donor
...and although it's been a point of pride for me that I've never watched a show solely because I find members of the cast attractive, I admit I went in solely because of Michael Trucco. Fortunately for my pride, I don't think he's just a pretty face; I loved Sam Anders and thought his portrayal was beautifully done. When I heard Trucco was playing a lawyer, my first thought was he would play a great lawyer! with the stubborn second thought of I could stand to see him wear suits and ties following on its heels.
Then I started seeing the previews. I hated the pre-show promotional slam. The main character, Kate, was promised to be quirky and unconventional and sassy and smart and sexy, yes, yes, I get it, commercials, I do, but how about you show instead of tell? It soon got to the point of grating on my nerves, but this is a problem I often seem to have with USA's promotion of their original shows. Psych, for example? I really like the show, but before it started airing I hated their smothering we're-gonna-pound-this-premise-into-your-head commercials for it so much I never -- never -- imagined I'd watch it.
I was wrong about that. But do I still hate what they did with their advertising? You bet I do, and pre-premiere Fairly Legal commercials were as bad or worse.
I watched the premiere. Trucco delivered as much as he was allowed to, and even if we ignore the fact that I enjoy him as an actor I still liked his character, Justin the ADA and almost ex-husband, the best. It was clear I was supposed to like the main character, Kate Reed, but she didn't do it for me. She felt too quirky, too over-the-top. There was very little subtlety in the pilot. The only other major female character was nothing but a prop (although she's since risen to rival Justin as my favorite character), as was Kate's assistant Leo, and the very first mediation we saw the character doing was in a convenience store at gunpoint and I just could not buy that these random people were going along with what this woman they didn't even know was telling them to do. Especially the guy with the gun; I find it hard to believe that most people robbing a convenience store would rather take inventory than cash, even if they could actually use the food or whatever.
Don't get me wrong: I fully realize this is television. Also, I am no legal expert. I expect certain things to get glossed over and certain corners to get cut and certain rules to be bent. I also went into this aware that I could like it but that I probably wouldn't consider it "great" television. That said, I have definite problems with the writing that have continued beyond the premiere. I appreciate Kate's desire to see in shades of gray and I like that she wants to help people and I sympathized over the loss of her father when it was more of a plot point, but those things are not enough to make me enjoy the character because I think there's a distinct difference between what they're selling (a smart mediator whose methods are "unconventional") and what they're providing (a sometimes smart and always stubborn mediator whose methods can be legally irresponsible or even cruel (stealing a file from Justin's office? making a couple think she'd smashed up a family heirloom watch? [the decoy watch, by the way, belonged to her assistant and she didn't have permission to use it] smashing up a store's inventory?). I also have trouble enjoying Kate because more than once other characters -- even smart characters like Justin and the very capable Lauren -- have had to be dumbed down for her schemes to work, and even though she doesn't always necessarily like how things go, she has yet to face any real consequences for her actions, which takes my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.
And to go a step further, as much as I enjoy Justin and think Trucco plays attraction like he was born for it, I can't even really appreciate the relationship between him and Kate on more than a superficial level. In the first two episodes I could accept it because of how little I'd seen of them interacting, but since then I've been scratching my head over them. For someone who can be so nice to clients and is supposedly driven by wanting to help people, Kate often shows a real lack of respect for those around her on both personal and professional levels. She's constantly late? She slaps Justin's food out of his hand? She talks to his neighbors about his issues when he pointedly tells her not to? She deletes something he's working on and just says "That wasn't important, was it?" without so much as looking at him? And that's not mentioning the whole balcony issue, which I can't say I wasn't able to appreciate (Trucco fans can find pictures here but shouldn't look while at work) but really didn't sit right with me because of how mad Justin was in the moment. Kate's problems aren't just that she's an emotional mess or whatever but that she has absolutely zero demonstrated concept of right and wrong in her personal relationships and it's written more as a cute quirky situational thing than a well-characterized thing so she walks all over people even though some of them are clearly supposed to be at odds with her over one thing or another. I don't need step-by-step instructions here, but I find it hard to understand how Kate and Justin can have the history the show's telling me they do. I have to assume their relationship must've been a whirlwind romance/marriage/separation (because while they do have times where they seem comfortable with each other they don't seem to mesh very well at all) or that the sex is mind-blowingly life-alteringly amazing (and that I'd buy sooner if their chemistry didn't generally strike me as mild, but I will note I think it's improved since the pilot).
So... yeah, I consider the show's main character to be one of its largest problems. It's nothing against Sarah Shahi, who's a lovely woman doing what she can with the material she's been given. They want to get across that Kate may be successful professionally but she's a mess personally, but I've seen complex female characters who were messy. Here it's the writing (and possibly the direction?) that's messy. Another problem I have is that I don't get why they would end an episode on a kind of cliffhanger-style note and then fail to make a single mention of it the next week. They brought it up again two weeks later, but that's just not effective, guys. I know the show's a dramedy or whatever you want to call it, but it's not realistic enough for me to consider it a drama -- the relationships and plotlines are very situational rather than based on character depth -- and there's too much that's serious for me to look to it for comedy.
What's there to like about the show?
1. Michael Trucco. He's gorgeous. He also does his job and sells me on his part in the show.
2. It's very pretty.
3. Virginia Williams is good as Lauren, who isn't given enough credit in character or out, I think.
4. It is good for some laughs. Intentionally.
5. I've seen short clips from the episodes left in the season, and some of the most interesting stuff about the Kate/Justin relationship is yet to come. (And I hate to reduce Trucco to the romance but that's 80% of what the role is and he does it well, and I think there's no question of whether or not those two characters will get back together because this is that kind of show and Justin is too convenient a plot device as the ADA connection for Kate. I welcome surprise, though.)
Is that enough to keep me watching? Well. If they didn't rerun it so often, maybe not. But for now my happiness to have Trucco on my TV weekly has been solely responsible for keeping me tuned in.