--- title: "Boston Legal" year: 2004 kind: "series" canonical: "https://film.one/tv/boston-legal" fi1m_score: 76 critics_score: 75 critics_reviews: 4 published: "2026-09-17T00:13:10.721621+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T00:13:31.090397+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Boston Legal (2004) Created by David E. Kelley · 42m · MPA TV-14 · Comedy, Drama **Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 75 (early) from 4 reviews *In a sentence:* Two men, two cigars, one balcony; the law keeps interrupting and they seem to resent it > David E. Kelley’s legal series is soapbox and farce inside the same 42 minutes, and its cases are often the least of it. What holds it together is James Spader and William Shatner on a balcony, and that turns out to be enough. ## Synopsis Boston, 2004. Alan Shore (James Spader), a lawyer with a gift for winning and no visible scruples, joins Crane, Poole & Schmidt, a wealthy firm whose founding partner, Denny Crane (William Shatner), still says his own name like a trademark and is quietly losing his memory. Managing partner Paul Lewiston (René Auberjonois) wants Alan gone and hires Brad Chase (Mark Valley), clean-cut and by the book, to keep him in line. Alan wants to win his cases by whatever means come to hand and to be left alone while he does it. Around them: Tara Wilson (Rhona Mitra), Lori Colson (Monica Potter), a courtroom a week, and a balcony where Denny and Alan end each day with cigars and scotch. ## Review *Boston Legal* began as a spin-off from *The Practice* and stopped behaving like one almost at once. David E. Kelley moves Alan Shore across town to Crane, Poole & Schmidt, a Boston firm with a great deal of glass and a great deal of money, and over five seasons and 101 episodes turns a lawyer programme into something nearer a weekly revue. Each episode carries a case or two, and each case is an excuse to get a subject Kelley cares about in front of a jury: the death penalty, the government, whatever was in that week’s papers. It is good, it is often funny, and it is more affecting than a series this silly has any right to be. Its cases are the weakest thing in it. James Spader plays Alan as a man who knows exactly what he is and has decided to enjoy it. He blackmails, he seduces, he wins, and when he stands to close he speaks slowly, in long sentences, and the series stops to listen. William Shatner plays Denny Crane, founding partner, gun enthusiast and self-declared legend, who says his own name as a greeting, a boast and, increasingly, a way of checking he is still there. His memory is going and he knows it. The two of them end most episodes on the balcony outside Denny’s office, in leather chairs, with cigars and scotch and the city behind them, talking about nothing in particular. Those balcony scenes are the series. We expected to find them cute and we found them something else. We did not expect William Shatner to move us, and he did, more than once, and it was the stillness that did it: a man who has spent a career being large sitting quite still, holding a cigar, saying he is afraid, and Spader answering as a friend rather than a straight man. Nothing in the courtroom comes close. Candice Bergen’s Shirley Schmidt arrives as the only adult either of them fears, and Bergen plays her dry, amused and immovable. René Auberjonois’s Paul Lewiston runs the place in a state of permanent alarm. Christian Clemenson’s Jerry Espenson, a lawyer whose tics the office cannot make room for, is written with real tenderness and played without a shred of begging. John Larroquette turns up late as Carl Sack and is the best of the later additions. Below that tier the cast churns: Rhona Mitra, Monica Potter, Mark Valley, Julie Bowen, Saffron Burrows and Tara Summers arrive and leave with the minimum of explanation. Six credited cinematographers, Philip Holahan and John C. Flinn III among them, tell you what kind of programme this is: it looks the same every week and is meant to. The offices are bright and glass-walled, the courtrooms are panelled wood, and the balcony is lit warm against a blue night. The editors, Tiffany Hauck, Craig Bench, Michael Hathaway and Philip Carr Neel, cut between two or three cases and the office inside 42 minutes and keep it brisk. Directors including Bill D’Elia and Mike Listo know the house style: hold still for the speeches, move for the jokes. The jokes include the characters noticing they are in a television series and remarking on the size of the cast, and this is funnier than it should be. The speeches are the trouble. Kelley writes Alan’s closing arguments as newspaper columns, opposing counsel is handed the weaker brief, and the jury sits where the viewer is meant to. We admired the nerve and grew tired of being told what to think, and by the later stretches of the second season, which runs to 27 episodes and is too long for anyone, we were skipping ahead to the balcony. The earliest reviews found the series derivative of Kelley’s earlier shows and were not wrong about the opening run; the quirk of *Ally McBeal* is here, with less charm. The women are written first as things for Alan or Denny to look at and only then as lawyers, and the order shows. Set against Kelley’s own work it is warmer than *The Practice* and steadier than *Ally McBeal*. Some critics have called it the best courtroom series ever made; we would not go that far, because *Rumpole of the Bailey* exists. Watch it out of order if you like. Nothing much carries over except two men, two chairs and a box of cigars, and that is what you came for. *Fi1m score 76, published 17 September 2026.* ### Reviews we read (4) - **The Guardian** (90/100, inferred): The critic calls Boston Legal brilliant and the best courtroom-drama series yet, better than Ally McBeal, for balancing far-fetched elements with genuine issues. They praise James Spader's performance, the cast including Candice Bergen and William Shatner, and the series' nuanced love letters to America through critical commentary on topics like the death penalty. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/tvandradioblog/2007/jun/13/bostonlegalistheunsungher) - **Empire**, Angie Errigo (80/100, inferred): The critic praises the kooky legal comedy-drama for its sublime partnership between Alan Shore and Denny Crane, which brilliantly balances the show's handling of hot-button issues with humor, despite some unevenness in season four. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/tv/reviews/boston-legal-season-four-review/) - **The Times**, Nigel Kendall (80/100, inferred): The review describes the series as a sparkling legal drama with a formulaic structure that hides vibrant intelligence and a tender exploration of male friendship between Alan Shore and Denny Crane. It notes that unexplained cast changes are offset by the joy of Spader and Shatner's performances. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/boston-legal-the-complete-series-0gg8j05f9bh) - **Variety**, Brian Lowry (50/100, inferred): The review finds the series smart and watchable with strong cast and quirky elements but criticizes it for feeling derivative and lacking fresh spark compared to previous Kelley shows. [Read](https://variety.com/2004/film/awards/boston-legal-1200530586/) ## Details - **Created by:** David E. Kelley - **Creator:** David E. Kelley - **Director:** Mike Listo, Bill D'Elia, Robert Yannetti, Steve Robin, James Bagdonas, Jeff Bleckner, Arlene Sanford, Lou Antonio, John Terlesky, Tom Verica, Adam Arkin, Eric Stoltz, Mel Damski, Stephen Cragg, Jeannot Szwarc, Ron Underwood, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Dennis Smith, Ellie Kanner, Michael Lehmann, Andrew Bernstein, Michael Lohmann, Oz Scott, Tucker Gates, Charles Haid, Matt Shakman, Dan Attias, Hubert C. de la Bouillerie, Michael Pressman, Allison Liddi-Brown - **Writer:** David E. Kelley, Lawrence Broch, Janet Leahy, Susan Dickes, Corinne Brinkerhoff, Michael Reisz, Sanford Golden, Karen Wyscarver, Phoef Sutton, Andrew Kreisberg, Jonathan Shapiro, Craig Turk, Jill Goldsmith, Jeff Rake, Scott Kaufer, Peter Ocko, Kerry Ehrin, Lukas Reiter, Brooke Eikmeier - **Story:** David E. Kelley, Susan Dickes, Janet Leahy, Michael Reisz, Sanford Golden, Karen Wyscarver, Jonathan Shapiro, Jill Goldsmith, Lawrence Broch, Andrew Kreisberg, Phoef Sutton, Peter Ocko, Amanda Johns, Lauren MacKenzie, Courtney Flavin - **Teleplay:** David E. Kelley, Lawrence Broch, Janet Leahy, Susan Dickes, Andrew Kreisberg - **Cinematography:** James Bagdonas, Michael Lohmann, Walt Lloyd, Richard M. Rawlings Jr., John C. Flinn III, Philip Holahan - **Editor:** Craig Bench, Michael Hathaway, Philip Carr Neel, Tiffany Hauck - **Producer:** Janet Knutsen - **Cast:** James Spader as Alan Shore; William Shatner as Denny Crane; Candice Bergen as Shirley Schmidt; Mark Valley as Brad Chase; Julie Bowen as Denise Bauer; Saffron Burrows as Lorraine Weller; John Larroquette as Carl Sack; Tara Summers as Katie Lloyd - **Runtime:** 42m - **Certificate (MPA):** TV-14 - **Release (the US):** 3 October 2004 - **Genres:** Comedy, Drama ## Where to watch in the US - Disney+: streaming, hd - Hulu: streaming, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy, hd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AT, AU, BE, CA, CH, DE, DK, EE, FI, GB, IE, IN, IS, KR, LT, NL, NO, NZ, PL, SE, SG, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Practice* (1997): Where Alan Shore came from; grimmer, tighter, and Spader is already the best thing in it - *Rumpole of the Bailey* (1978): The English original of the lawyer who wins by talking; claret instead of scotch - *The Good Wife* (2009), Fi1m 84: A case a week, done with more discipline and considerably less shouting — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/the-good-wife.md) - *Anatomy of a Murder* (1959): James Stewart shows how a closing argument works when nobody is making a speech - *Better Call Saul* (2015), Fi1m 84: Another lawyer who cannot help himself, played for tragedy rather than applause — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/better-call-saul.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/boston-legal