- Network: CBS
- Series Premiere Date: Sep 22, 2010
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Critic Reviews
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The show is an old-fashioned courtroom procedural, but the pilot has enough sharp writing and well-greased plot twists to suggest future promise.
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Questions of innocence are established fairly early in the far more appealing of the legal dramas beginning on Wednesday: The Defenders on CBS. Here the love connection is unambiguously platonic and winning.
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The Defenders, based on a documentary about a pair of hotshot Las Vegas lawyers, is easily the best thing to happen to Jim Belushi since "According to Jim" was canceled and people like me had to stop using him as a punchline....[And] They're not the only fun characters.
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The Defenders is a standard-issue legal drama, but Mr. Belushi and Mr. O'Connell bring a playful exuberance to their roles that allows the series to rise above its trappings.
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It's a brash, enjoyable hour that doesn't take itself very seriously, though fighting for their underdog clients is very serious business.
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The Defenders which, like those other shows, is a pretty straightforward legal procedural, has a surprising amount of fun with its familiar building blocks.
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Defenders at least has a sure grip on its tone. [8 Nov 2010, p.40]
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But the moments it goes too far or feels too slight are countered by the sense you're watching two men who care about their clients and are good at what they do, and by the emotional hook that helps provide. And that may be enough to turn it into a hit.
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Belushi and O'Connell are fun to watch, and--spoiler!--it turns out they're real sweethearts, too.
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The plots feature lots of creative legal give-and-take to keep the audience amused and guessing.
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Whether Belushi is using the firm's private detectives to follow his estranged wife, or O'Connell is sleeping with the prosecutor who's trying to put his client in jail ("You really don't like me much, do you?" she asks while taking off her blouse), the show has an irresistible outlaw quality.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 26 out of 33
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Mixed: 3 out of 33
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Negative: 4 out of 33
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Oct 3, 2010
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Apr 7, 2011
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Feb 26, 2011