Review for LA Law: Season 1 (Review)

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Introduction
I’ve come to realise that the procedural drama is like sci-fi for people who don’t like sci-fi. You get taken into the arcane and mysterious worlds of the policeman, the surgeon, the private eye and indeed the lawyer, professions that few of us will ever be qualified for; replete with jargon and procedure that seem fantastic to us, but the appealing thing is that the jobs that they do relate to us all. We all at some point in our lives will need the service of a lawyer or a doctor, and probably even an officer of the law. It’s the fantastic combined with the commonplace that makes such shows so successful, and just why there will always be some form of CSI on our screens no matter what. There will also always be a legal drama of some sort on screen. Indeed, I have a vision of Columbo arresting all these murderers, only for Perry Mason to get them acquitted the next week. What else can explain the number of times that Patrick McGoohan appeared on Columbo?

For me however, my appreciation of the legal drama ended with Ally McBeal, and really only began about ten years earlier, with this show, LA Law. Running from 1986 to 1994, I only really started watching it after Doctor Pulaski fell down the lift-shaft. But LA Law begat a tradition of, and a style of legal drama that continues to this day. It was created by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher, but its script editor at first, before he took on a more prominent role was one David E. Kelley. It’s David E. Kelley that has given us Ally McBeal, The Practice, and Boston Legal and more, an unbroken run of successful legal dramas that continues to this day. And it all began with one of the most popular shows to come out of the eighties. I never saw the beginning of LA Law, but now that Revelation are releasing the first season on DVD, I get to see how it all started.

LA Law follows the trials and tribulations of a firm of lawyers, McKenzie, Brackman, Chaney & Kuzak. The cases that they pursue vary from the meaningful to the trivial, the personal to the whimsical, covering all aspect of law from criminal to civil, divorce to tax, corporate to entertainment. They have a diverse portfolio of lawyers in their ranks, ranging from the eager and idealistic defenders of justice, to the cynical mercenaries, and of course the occasional lawyer that has harassed clients quoting from Shakespeare. These varied personalities don’t always get along in the boardroom, but they’re always sure to make an impact in the courtroom!

The first series of LA Law is presented by Revelation Films across 6 discs, totalling 22 episodes, including the double-length pilot episode.

Disc 1
1. Pilot – Parts 1 & 2
2. Those Lips, That Eye
3. The House of the Rising Flan

Disc 2
4. The Princess and the Wiener King
5. Simian Chanted Evening
6. Slum Enchanted Evening
7. Raiders of the Lost Bark

Disc 3
8. Gibbon Take
9. The Venus Butterfly
10. Fry Me To The Moon
11. El Sid

Disc 4
12, Sidney, The Dead Nosed Reindeer
13. Prince Kuzak In A Can
14. The Douglas Fur Ball
15. December Bribe

Disc 5
16. Beef Jerky
17. Becker On The Rox
18. Fifty Ways To Floss Your Lover
19. The Grace Of Wrath

Disc 6
20. Sparky Brackman, R.I.P.
21. Oy Vey, Wilderness
22. Pigmalion

Picture
The image quality isn’t the most impressive, although given that the source material is mid eighties US NTSC television, that is to be expected. I doubt that the funds, or the original materials exist to give LA Law the same kind of makeover that Star Trek: The Next Generation is receiving right now, so you ought not to be surprised by the soft, videotape quality, the moiré and shimmer on fine detail and the overall lack of fidelity. What is disappointing about this set is that the episodes here get NTSC-PAL conversions, rather than native PAL as was most probably broadcast here. There is a slight judder to pans and scrolls, while blended frames do become apparent if you happen to pause playback at an inopportune moment. While disappointing, this was never detrimental to the viewing experience.

Sound
Audio comes in the form of DD 2.0 Stereo and Mono according to the blurb on the back of the case. I get the feeling that the Stereo only applies to the theme music that accompanies the animated menus on each disc, as the audio in the show itself was a distinctly monaural, front and centre affair. It’s generally clear throughout, certainly the dialogue was always clear, but early episodes, and the pilot episode in particular suffered from moments of hiss. Also, with the final disc a single layer offering, with 140 minutes of video on it, compression was more apparent in the audio than the video, with the sound on this disc alone sounding hollow and thin. This affected the music and ambient noise on this disc, not the dialogue, however.

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