The Good Fight

During an hour long phone call with my brother, a significant portion of which was spent hyperventilating about Donald Trump, I recommended that he and my sister-in-law watch the CBS Access (online only) TV series The Good Fight. The first I’d heard of it came from this NYT story about its opening credits. For the past five or six days my wife and I have been watching this fresh, topical and stellar series.

Anyone who detests Trump should watch it. Some very smart writers know how you feel. I’ll only tell you this brief summary. A white woman attorney in a big Chicago Law firm that is beating back some savvy black attorneys representing a black victim of a vicious police attack is about to retire. After she signs her papers resigning from her partnership she discovers that all her savings have been lost by another Bernie Madoff. None of the big Chicago Law firms is willing to throw her a life jacket to continue in the law except for the all-black law firm she had been fighting. That specializes in suing the City of Chicago Police for tens of millions of dollars. Although The Good Fight is not on network television its one of the smartest programs I’ve seen and after a year of losing interest in Colbert and other Late Night Trump critics this fits my bill.

Perry Mason was the top TV lawyer when I was little but the Television Law show that really captured my attention was called the Defenders. It starred E.G. Marshall as the head of a law firm that took the liberal side of a lot of ripped from the Headlines cases. I watched it with my Dad, himself a lawyer, and I got an early eyeful about issues like Miranda Rights. According to this Wikipedia entry the episode on the legal defense of an abortionist was its most controversial episode. This was twelve years before Roe vs. Wade. I don’t recall seeing this particular program. Like The Good Fight the Defenders was well suited for its time in the early 1960’s.

Watching a Season of The Good Fight on Amazon Prime will cost about twenty bucks. As I told my brother that’s 13 shows for the cost of a good bottle of wine.

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