Cynical Cinema

With the massive amount of TV series on DVD, I can’t imagine people being able to pick up all of their favourite shows. And so I find it hard to believe that people are willing to take a chance on a show they haven’t seen and pick up a season’s worth on a big box set, unless that series is Brotherhood, or Californication, or Dexter. Something new they might not get on their regular channels. And then, every now and then, I see a TV series where I think to myself - no one, ever, would pick this up. For example, J.A.G. The seventh season comes out on November 4th, and I just can’t see anyone grabbing this off a store shelf. Then again, it has been around for seven seasons, and I certainly can’t understand that either.

I remember David James Elliott from that bastion of Canadiana, Street Legal, in the early nineties. I wasn’t terribly impressed with him then either. Catherine Bell is terrific, but you can see the best of her talent on the Doc and Woody Fun Page every couple of weeks. And as far as the writing and the premise, does anyone really want to watch a second-rate legal military drama? The legal thing has been done to death. The military thing has been done much better. And yet this series lasted ten seasons. It finished 77th in the ratings in it’s first year, and yet it was brought back. The seventh season is a reminder of the reason it finished 77th. It does not illuminate the reason it lasted ten years.