TELEVISION
The stars of CBS courtroom drama ‘Doubt’ are back but its return was marred by too many contradictions.
It’s great to see some of the stars of Doubt back on television, but did their return have to be in such a mess of a show? The series, a courtroom drama that began on Wednesday on CBS, seems to have been assembled by a particularly indifferent Victor Frankenstein, the parts crammed together without much regard for whether the stitching is visible or whether the finished product works.
Katherine Heigl, a Grey’s Anatomy alumna, stars as Sadie Ellis, a top lawyer at a New York firm where she often teams up with Albert Cobb (Dule Hill) to defend high-profile clients.
The first of the many personalities the show tries to adopt comes via their relationship, which strives for the witty polar-opposite dynamic that Hill worked so well with James Roday in Psych. But through the first three episodes, Hill and Heigl go through the motions without ever really clicking.
Sadie has an ethics problem: She has developed feelings for the firm’s most prominent client, Dr William Brennan (Steven Pasquale, who played Detective Mark Fuhrman in The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story).
Here, the show, besides working the forbidden-romance bit, tries to grab a little rippedfrom-the-headlines feel, because the doctor, whose father was a well-regarded politician, is being tried in the murder of his high school girlfriend a quarter-century ago.
Don’t be surprised if you find yourself thinking of the case of Michael Skakel, the Kennedy cousin who was convicted in 2002 of a 1975 murder. And yes, for those keeping track, the real Mark Fuhrman once wrote a book about the Skakel case.
Anyway, Doubt employs the template of other recent dramas that have focused on a single crime, but also uses the case-of-theweek format of Law & Order and other procedurals. While the Brennan case and romance percolate, the firm’s lawyers are also working other cases that tidily wrap up in an hour — an unstable man who pushed a woman in front of a subway train; a college student seeking her own brand of justice after nothing is done to the fellow student who raped her; and so on. This much can be said for Doubt: It packs a lot into each episode.
Every TV law firm must have a paternalistic fount of wisdom, and here it’s Isaiah Roth, who runs the operation with a style that seems too laid back for the circumstances. Perhaps that’s because Elliott Gould, who plays the character, couldn’t muster anything stronger. He seems more like an office administrator than the shrewd legal crusader he’s supposed to be, despite a rather elaborate backstory that won’t be spoiled here.
Laverne Cox, Dreama Walker and Kobi Libii also play members of the firm, each vying for attention in the already crowded scripts. In the early going, at least, they add clutter without being very compelling. Most distracting of all, though, are some fringe characters who seem as if they’re refugees from The Office. Because, yes, this legal drama/mystery/romance also occasionally tries to be a workplace comedy.
Doubt has experience behind it — it’s from Joan Rater and Tony Phelan, who were among the brains behind Grey’s Anatomy and Madam Secretary. But it remains to be seen whether the show will ever be able to get its often contradictory parts working in sync.