A Televisual Feast

A concept episode. Woo-hoo. A documentary team follows the firm as they try to save a black guy on death row for killing a white girl. The dramatic problem? The format–the documentary team, who only get their boom mikes in the shot after commercial breaks–determines the conclusion immediately. I mean, is there any suspense to it? Clint Eastwood can’t race through town with a documentary team in his backseat. Doesn’t work.

Decent enough acting, even though everyone’s playing for the “camera.” Way too much revelation from the team, which is where the acting gets iffy, when they’re revealing character defining moments to the documentary camera.

The writing’s okay, but the whole thing’s uninteresting. At the beginning, some pissed off victim’s family member asks the camera if they’re trying to make a thing against the death penalty and the cameraman says no… but of course they are, so why not own up? It probably would have helped the episode.

2