For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The first season of HARRY'S LAW had me from the first episode. I was a sold viewer. First of all Kathy Bates is so watchable and the show has a typical, maybe a little too typical David Kelly feel to it. Kelly sometimes reworks his old characters like Denny Crane into the new Tommy played well by Chris MacDonald. The first season was excellent and now come season two (thank heavens) and we have many cast changes and a whole new feel to the series. I am not 100 per cent sure it was for the better but the the 3 episode arc with Jean Smart and Alfred Molina was superb. Please bring back Jean Smart. She is dynamite as always. Just pray NBC is patient with this series. Some have called it old hat but there is room for good comfortable TV series like this one.

We know from the history of TV that lawyer shows (e.g. Perry Mason) started out all pretty serious. But we the fan base soon get tired of "serious." It is too much like our daily lives and we want to be entertained.In more recent history, lawyer shows (e.g. LA Law, Ally McBeal, etc) became less serious, more quirky and we enjoyed them more. That's entertainment.So now Kathy Bates comes along as Harriet Korn, nicknamed "Harry", and we instantly like her. A lady named Harry. But it doesn't stop there, as Bates is one of the best actresses in modern times. Every movie role she has been in has been memorable. So we would expect her TV role to be just as memorable.The TV series is well-written, and gives Bates plenty of room to act the tough, probing attorney. We watch it every week, always something special. Christopher McDonald is part of the regular cast and he is a hoot as lawyer Tommy Jefferson who isn't afraid to tackle any case and is likely to find a way to win it.

I just started watching Harry's Law, and I am quite enjoying it. I have been a fan of Kathy Bates since Fried Green Tomatos and she just keeps getting better. I love her in this role - this show has definitely got the David E Kelley touch- interesting (and sometimes zany) characters...check - signature courtroom rants..check. absurd situations..check - seriously...a law office/shoe store? Ridiculous and hilarious! I was a huge Boston Legal Fan, and now, watching Harry's Law, despite the fact that the situation of the lawyers is different, there are many similarities. It's kind of odd to see Mark Valley as a lawyer again (but can I just say YUM!) I find it a little disturbing how well Christopher McDonald channels William Shatner - the character has the same silly personality and huge ego and he sounds so much like Shatner sometimes it's eerie - right down to the oft-repeated "Tommy Jefferson" line. That bugs me a little sometimes. There was and should ever be only one "Denny Crane" Still in all, there are compelling situations (and some very emotionally charged scenes as well) and the writing is sarcastic and clever - some of my favourite things in a show. I will definitely keep watching.

I wasn't going to watch the second season, abs in fact, idthought the first season so bad that I didn't expect it to get renewed, but since I hadn't removed the series from my dvr, the season 2 premier popped up and I decided to see if it was as lackluster and childish an effort as season 1. So glad I did! With the changes he's made, Kelley has thankfully redeemed himself from something I just couldn't comprehend he'd put together after his past works. Even amidst all his goofiness, at least his prior shows' premises were interesting and seemed rooted in cases that you could believe might actually progress in such ways. Not so with Harry's Law, just one ridiculous premise after another lacking more than an ounce of reality here and there, without the extreme kookiness that allowed us to excuse such cases with Ally McBeal. In season 1 the gang members came across as something out of a 1980s after-school special. They weren't scary or threatening; they were pretty much comical in a show that was trying to be a drama first and foremost. Bates seemed to be trying too hard to be crotchety just for the sake of giving the world the finger, and she was just too contrary and frankly, unlikable to make the humorous moments seem to fit well in the same show with her. This season, something has changed, and it's not just the cast. Bates shows her fatigue over last season's ordeal; at first I thought the actress was ill, but now I think it's an intentional acting choice for the character. The characters aside from her, both her secondaries and the clients, are more interesting and believable. Suddenly there is depth in a show that couldn't seem to decide if it was a comedy with occasional serious moments, or a drama with comic elements. Thankfully, Kelley seems to have decided it is a drama with "real" people, each with their own personalities and not one-note caricatures but multiple-faceted, fairly realistic human beings. Molina as a starting guest star is a good move as well. I will actually watch this season, and changing my mind so strongly about a show is rare for me. Give it a shot; I will be watching at least a couple more episodes to see how it goes, but at this point I think it has ten times the promise of last season.