TNT's Raising the Bar

TNT has debuted a new Steven Bochco courtroom drama this fall called, 'Raising the Bar' (Monday, 10 pm) and it stars some familiar faces. Remember Mark-Paul Gosselaar from NYPD Blue and Saved by the Bell or Jane Kaczmarek of Malcolm and the Middle fame? Well here they are in all their legal battle glory.

Or lack thereof.

As a fan of Law and Order for many years as well as SVU and other crime and legal shows I thought I might really like Raising the Bar. However, like many of TNT's shows in the past few years (The Closer and Saving Grace to name a few) it failed to grab me. I watched three episodes and found that no matter how hard I tried or wanted to I could not care about any of the characters. Two of the episodes opened with very unoriginal sex in the office scenes and the show was already losing me. I actually started craving Ally McBeal and I hated that show. I found it predictable and over-acted by everyone except Gloria Reuben (ER). She was the only character I wanted to see more of and never really did.

Thing is, and what saves this show from getting one or two stars, is that I think others will really like it. They will like Gosselaar's drive and passion for his clients or Kaczmarek's bulldog bitchiness that all seemed tired and over played to me. Me, a person, who loves every sort of television from the insipid The Hills to Lost, Grey's Anatomy, The Wire and Arrested Development. It is not that it is bad acting it is just that is feels very unoriginal and in return raises nothing. Not a bar or my eyelids as they closed to go to sleep midway through each episode.