There’s nothing more unremarkable than a network television deal to produce a show about lawyers, except a deal to produce a show about cops, of course. But when it comes to finding new reason to revisit a ridiculously strip-mined genre, you can’t count out Steven Bochco and David Milch, who redefined the standard police procedural twice over with Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, and who are now hoping to do the same with a legal drama for NBC. Certainly NBC has its own high hopes: It bought the script with a six-figure penalty, clearly excited about the possibility of reliving some of its ’80s and ’90s glory days by calling up old friends—and in Milch’s case, getting him to take time off from his current duties on HBO’s Luck to work on the pilot.
According to preliminary descriptions, the show is set inside Tapman Rose, “D.C.’s hottest law firm”—though don’t even get us started, as we’ll be arguing about which D.C. law firm is hotter all night—and follows Ted Tapman, a charismatic, billion-dollar-generating lawyer who also has “a dark secret.” Like maybe he’s secretly two dwarfs in a suit, or possibly something a little grittier. Anyway, yes, the last thing we need is another TV show about lawyers, but at least its credentials are encouraging—and as anyone who sat through John From Cincinnati will tell you, an exception will always be made for David Milch, because Deadwood.