The Other Balcony Scene
By Adam Holmberg
IV Leader Staff, Mar 15, 2007
Television viewers, tired of the monotony of the countless
legal dramas and procedurals, will want to visit the offices and courtrooms
occupied by the flawed, yet funny people who make up the Boston law firm of
Crane, Poole, and Schmidt.
These characters are part of David E. Kelley’s bitingly witty
and brilliantly balanced Peabody-winning masterpiece Boston Legal.
Another show set in the vast universe of Kelley’s dramas and
dramadies (a list which includes Picket Fences, Chicago Hope, and The Practice),
Boston Legal is perhaps Kelley’s best, most refined work.
In its first two seasons is an effortless joy that dances
between side-splitting comedy and true drama in a voodoo mixture that’s magical
to watch.
Its third season is less balanced but no less compelling. The
show is often a “message show,” confronting a rich salad of topics, dominating
current events.
These current events range from anything and everything such
as mad cow to support of the war in Iraq to the death penalty to America’s love
of watching rich beautiful people suffer without once lecturing or
condescending, or even giving an intelligent voice to the “other side” of the
argument.
Boston Legal is truly a show of many joys. The bond shared by
two men, Alan Shore and Denny Crane – one a liberal Democrat, one a conservative
Republican – is, at the risk of sounding repetitive, one of the most honest in
the history of television.
Like every Boston Legal episode, there is “the balcony scene”
(not the one from Romeo and Juliet), but “the other balcony scene” that closes
each episode of Boston Legal, like Alan Shore and Denny Crane with a cigar and a
drink on the balcony of Denny’s office.
Their discussion sometimes wraps up some of the lingering
themes of the episode. Sometimes it is just a whimsical trifle, and sometimes
its sincere words and a touch of humor between two men who truly love each
other.
The “other balcony scene” is two close friends, played by two
fantastic actors, simply enjoying each other’s company just as the viewer can
sincerely enjoy Boston Legal, a show with both laughter and depth in equal
measure.