USA TODAY International Edition
CBS has found legal standing in ‘ Doubt’
Katherine Heigl heads strong cast in entertaining drama
Good star, good part, good show.
With a mainstream broadcast drama, the kind built more for ratings than Emmys, often your choice boils down to a simple question: Do you want to spend an hour a week watching this star in this role in this fictional world? With Katherine Heigl and CBS’ Doubt ( Wednesday, 10 ET/ PT, eeeE out of four), the answer is a conditional “yes.”
The conditions? For one, you have to be willing ( as you really should be) to let go of whatever aggrieved- fan grudges you hold toward Heigl. She’s made some bad career choices — her last, short- lived series State of Affairs being one of them. But in Doubt, she’s back in the kind of role for which she’s well- suited, one that lets her use her talents for drama and light comedy and that may remind you of why Grey’s Anatomy made her a TV star in the first place.
To get there, though, you have to get past a pilot that strives too hard to cast Heigl’s lawyer character, Sadie Ellis, in the “professionally brilliant/ personally flawed” mold — a bad- ass rule- breaker who says and does what she thinks, no matter the consequences.
The first hour pushes the point at you so strenuously, it may set your eyes rolling, but don’t be deterred: the second and third episodes are much better, and promise a solid, entertaining show ahead.
As well they should, considering the cast creators Joan Rater and Tony Phelan have gathered here. In addition to Heigl, you get Elliott Gould, Dulé Hill, Laverne Cox, Steven Pasquale, Dreama Walker and, in a recurring role, Judith Light. If you can’t build a decent series around a group like that, you should find a new line of work.
Heigl’s Sadie is the star attorney in a small criminal defense firm founded by Gould’s Isaiah Roth, a beloved liberal legend. Her co- workers include her best friend and confidante, Albert ( Hill); Tiffany, a slightly naive associate ( Walker); a newly hired ex- con, Nick ( Kobi Libii); and a transgender Ivy League grad ( Cox, in a groundbreaking role).
Different cases float in and out of the firm each week, from a former judge accused of abusing his ill wife to a college student who accuses her resident adviser of date rape. One large case, however, continues from week to week: A murder trial involving formerly rich jerk turned pediatric surgeon Billy Brennan ( Pasquale), Sadie’s client and ( possible) lover. ( Shades of Grey’s Dead Denny, except he’s alive.)
So far, at least, none of the cases are handled with the complexity or ambiguity that marked The Good Wife ( admittedly a hard standard to reach). But they’re more than strong enough to hold your attention, while giving the series room to stretch out the Billy/ Sadie story.
You could wish for more, of course, but coming at the end of a stretch that just gave us such horrors as Training Day and APB, be grateful you’re not getting a lot less. Doubt isn’t art, but it’s a welldone piece of popular entertainment that, for Heigl, represents a welcome return to form.
Good for her, and good for us.