Fairly Meh

I believe I’ve mentioned before , here and here that I love the shows on USA.

Can we please just pause a moment to contemplate Neal Caffrey:

(I was going to insert this picture: but I thought it was a little too much, what do you think?)

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Oh yeah, I was going to tell you something.  I was going to tell you that in general I’m a pretty big fan of USA shows, I love Burn Notice, love White Collar (who wouldn’t?), I’m lately obsessed with In Plain Sight, I even like Royal Pains (sort of), so when they started to advertise a new show, Fairly Legal, I thought what the heck, I’ll give it a chance.  And I’m giving it a chance, but so far all I have to say is, “meh”.

In all reality I don’t think the premise of the show is all that great, a lawyer quits being a lawyer to become a mediator.  Whatever.  But I’m not really one to get hung up on the premise.  I don’t watch In Plain Sight for the stories about the people going into witness protection, I watch it because Mary is awesome.  I like characters.  The problem is that Kate, the lawyer turned mediator is not awesome.  She’s perpetually late, constantly blowing off her boss (who’s also her mother in law, although her father’s dead so maybe she’s not anymore) and her clients, she lies to everyone (but only about whether she’s on her way to their appointment which she’s inevitably going to miss for something that she deems more important forcing the other person to reschedule) in short she’s completely irresponsible and self involved.  I suppose that I, as the viewer, am supposed to find that endearing but I just find it annoying.

The question is why I’m still watching.

Two reasons, one is that I like USA shows enough that I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, Burn Notice didn’t start out all that great either but now it’s one of my favorite shows, and the other is Lauren Reed, the boss mother in law.  In the pilot she’s a recent widow (although very young, and pretty of course) who has to deal with this self centered child of a daughter in law / employee and try to run a law practice which is foundering in the wake of the death of its founder.  There’s a scene in the pilot where she goes out to dinner to wine and dine a client who’s considering jumping ship.  She thinks she’s been successful until the client makes it clear that in order to keep his business she’s going to have to sleep with him.  She refuses (as politely as possible) and leaves.  Shortly there after Kate, the spoiled woman child, gives her a hard time for having lost the account.  Lauren says nothing.

She’s made out to be the wicked witch of the west but at this point she’s my only reason for coming back.