Load of rubbish!!

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

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

As I'm writing this, I have seen only about 8 episodes of the first season. It seems a bit quaint to me. Some of the episodes have predictable plots in a law school setting. Hart seems to find a new girlfriend every episode - I don't want to see his energy with the ladies, I want to see it with Kingsfield. One episode, in which a female student takes a Supreme Court justice (Alan Napier, better known as Alfred on "Batman") to task for never hiring a female law clerk, seems really bizarre in that there are actually people spending more than a nanosecond defending his discriminatory practice - is this really controversial? The man is a Neanderthal! There's also this recurring theme of Hart as the Good Guy who rides his white horse to bail everybody out. One time it's a married student whose wife (Kim Cantrall, later of Sex And The City) doesn't understand the demands of law school, another time a neurotic study group member who feels picked on because his photo on Kingsfield's seating chart is unflattering.I think what troubled me is that I was looking for more continuing plot themes from episode to episode. Characters and themes pop up and are disposed of in an hour. Law school is vastly more complex than that, and The Paper Chase should be also. When you have 10 or 20 hours available, you should be able to build more intensity, conflict, and drama than they could in the original 2-hour movie. But I "feel" Hart as more a happy-go-lucky nice guy than the scared yet driven 1L Timothy Bottoms played.I do recall though, from when I saw many of the episodes when they were on Showtime in the 80's, that it gets better later on. If and when I get to see more recent episodes, I'll update this review or write a new one.

It has been 20 years since broadcast, and it remains a favorite of mine. The Paper Chase was then called "too good for television", assumedly due to its highly intellectual, fast moving content. The characters were well chosen right from the start. Running from 1983 to 1986 it was to follow a group of students through law school, from the very first day to graduation. The show was extremely well written. Social interaction, challenge, struggle, and eventual triumph (in most cases) formed the plots. I recall describing this series as "making more points than a rose bush". It would be great to re-air the series, as every topic is just as valid today. John Houseman will be forever irreplaceable.

I can say this, I am so glad that I never had John Houseman for a professor when I was in college. Whew! the old guy was really intimidating. It was still an enjoyable "thinking mans" show. Houseman was the one who really made it work. He always stood out like a lion in a roomful of kittens. What is so shocking is that before he won his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the movie, he had never really acted before. For those of you who are trivia buffs, Houseman was very instrumental in the writing of Citizen Kane. Orson Welles liked to steal all of the credit though. The fact there were different series with different Mister Harts makes it confusing, but still a good show.

This was a most enjoyable series. It was designed for the more intelligent viewer. With rare exception, the characters were sensitive, intelligent and sometimes foolish enough to be totally believable. I taped most of the episodes and enjoy them even today.Sadly, with John Houseman's passing, there will never be another Prof. Charles Kingsfield, though George C. Scott may have made an interesting one also. This is one I would like to see re-run.The movie was good, but the series was better. Most can relate better to the real people of the series over the movie.