Goodbye to Boston Legal

I must admit I was sorry to see this television series end. We have had five seasons of intelligent wit, which never failed to entertain us. Each week we would sit and watch this star laden series, with constantly brilliant performances by William Shatner, James Spader and Candice Bergen. In addition, during the final seasons, there was a fantastic array of supporting cast members in John Larroquette, Christian Clemenson and Tara Summers. This year's cast alone was good, but then you also had the sporadic popping in and out performances of Betty White, Heather Locklear, Rhona Mitra, Carl Reiner and so many more. Not a wall-flower in the bunch, this series was packed with theatrical skill.

Always funny, the writer's of this show would enhance the weekly episodes by hitting on discrimination, of almost every kind, sometimes multiple quirky law suits and endless stupid laws still on the books. Little known diseases like Asperger's Syndrome or the more well known illnesses like Alzheimer's were trotted out through the characters interaction with each other. The skill of their writers got us to look at each disease, making them a little less scary or enlarging our compassion; which ever human emotion could aid to our own understanding a little bit more. And all the while we were watching, they would always make us laugh while we learned.

By trying their sometimes ridiculous cases, or by those problems within their own characters, the law firm of Crane, Poole and Schmidt never lost a beat right up to the very end. And the ending show was inevitable, closing in the only way it could make any sense. These are the kind of lawyers you can only hope to have if you ever need one. For all of their quirks and maladies, they were the best.

If you did not get an opportunity to catch this show during its regular run. I urge you to rent the series or catch it in syndication. Boston Legal ranks with the cream of the crop.