Created by David E. Kelley, Boston Legal was a spin-off of the long-running series The Practice, Boston Legal followed the personal and professional exploits of a group of attorneys working at the law firm of Crane, Poole & Schmidt. A solid top twenty show in the Nielsen ratings, Boston Legal has the distinction of drawing one of the most affluent audiences in television.
For those of you not familiar with the series, James Spader and William Shatner play Alan Shore and Denny Crane, unlikely allies among the pack of high-priced litigators at Crane Poole & Schmidt. In addition, Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen), a founding partner of the firm, continues to help bring order to the chaotic office. She keeps a vigilant eye on everyone, particularly Denny Crane, with whom she shares a checkered past.
Also keeping the office in order is no-nonsense senior partner Carl Sack (John Larroquette), another ex-boyfriend of Shirley’s, who has a newfound respect for the team. Also in the firm are Jerry Espenson (Christian Clemenson), Shore’s friend and fellow lawyer who suffers from Aspergers syndrome; and Katie Lloyd (Tara Summers), a young associate who is proving that she can run with the big boys in the office.
In this fifth and final season, the firm finds itself a victim of the current economy and could be bought out by the Chinese. Alan Shore actually begins to wonder if he’s been objectifying women all these years, while his cohort Denny Crane, just hopes his penis will continue to function, due to what he believes is mad cow disease but is actually Alzheimer’s. Meanwhile, Shirley is finally ready to reveal her secret relationship with Carl but worries about how Denny will take it, since he still carries a torch for her.
Denny’s mad cow disease plays a big part in the plot over the course of this season’s thirteen episodes. His illness has clearly advanced and Denny slowly but surely, begins to realize that he has Alzheimer’s disease. Throughout all of this, Denny and Alan seem to grow closer as they fight to save his mental faculties. Alan steps up to the plate and takes on more of a fatherly role and Denny begins to question his mortality in his own way.
Aside from the lawyer’s personal issues, the crew at Crane Poole & Schmidt took on a wide variety of tough cases. Alan took on big tobacco and the pharmaceutical companies; other cases included such controversial issues as same-sex marriage, teen pregnancy and abortion. In one of the season’s funniest episodes Betty White guest stars as a woman suing the television networks for not having any suitable programming for woman over 50. Hats off to David E. Kelley for not being afraid to throw a few darts at his own medium; it also must be said that Betty White is still one of the funniest women to grace a television screen whenever she pops up.
Fans of previous seasons will be glad to see former Crane Poole & Schmidt associates Denise Bauer (Julie Bowen) and Paul Lewiston (Rene Auberjonois) make return appearances. Longtime television watchers will enjoy the funny episode “Mad Cows,” where guest star Valerie Bertinelli appears as the theme from One Day at a Time plays in the background. The two-part series finale, “Made in China/Last Call” is a funny and touching conclusion that brings a satisfying close to one of the finest series of the last decade.
The fifth season of Boston Legal is presented with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio just like the previous years. The transfer for this DVD set is equally as impressive as the prior sets. The colors are rich and warm, there’s some incredible clarity and for a standard definition release there are several other high notes. It’s a shame the series is not available on Blu-ray at this time but as it stands you can’t find better looking shows on DVD.
The English 2.0 mix is adequate for the dialogue driven series and though the audio quality is nice and robust, it lacks the impact that a 5.1 selection could have made. Despite this, there is still a nice level of clarity and crispness. Once again there are also subtitles for English, French, and Spanish.
Boston Legal: Season Five has a few notable special features:
• [Disc 2] Denny and Alan: Friends to the End (14:36) looks at the friendship that drives much of the series. With clips from all five seasons and commentary by most of the cast and production crew this feature does a nice job shedding light on their relationship.
• [Disc 3] Denny’s Daughter: The Untold Story (21:42) features a nice introduction by Executive Producer Bill D’Elia. Bill goes on to fill us in on some details about a dropped storyline about Denny Crane’s long-lost daughter. There was a whole episode’s worth of material shot for her introduction and at the end they decided it was too little, too late. Her character would have involved multiple episodes to bring her about in a reasonable fashion so they axed her and brought the actress in for another role in an episode this season. This feature includes every scene that was cut and it’s more or less half of an episode that offers some very interesting moments.
• [Disc 4] Closing Statement: The Boston Legal Series Finale (13:17) is a nice way to bring the set to a close as it looks at the finale. The cast and crew get together to talk about their experience working on the show and episode, as well as their impressions of it
• [Disc 4] Deleted Scenes (21:36) eleven in total, these all receive an informative introduction by Bill D’Elia and some comments by David E. Kelley, to help put them into perspective.
