TV Review - Bluff City Law

If you didn't know, Bluff City is the nickname for Memphis, Tennessee. There have been some scenes that have utilized Memphis and shown why it's called Bluff City, just from a visual perspective, but it doesn't seem clear as to why the series is set in that specific place. Presumably, it's a place that means something to the creators of this series, Michael Aguilar and Dean Georgaris. What's also likely is that the network decided to try to make this series distinct from the various legal dramas and police procedural shows that are set in one of the coastal cities like Los Angeles and New York. It might also want to be unique from places like Chicago or Atlanta, which are the locations of most legal dramas or police procedural shows. Really establishing a sense of place and making great use of its location are things that remain to be seen. It's something that can't be felt in just the initial two episodes. The end of the first season is a better time to judge how well the series uses Memphis, but, in the mean time, all we have is the drama on hand.

Caitlin McGee stars as Sydney Strait, a lawyer at a major firm that mainly represents corporations. She's like the anti-Erin Brockovich or anti-Elizabeth Warren. She does all that she can to help corporations get away with whatever they're accused, whether it's ripping people off or polluting the environment. She wasn't always on the corporation's side. She's been doing so for three years ever since she left her father's law firm because of domestic strife. She became further estranged from her father and his firm, following her mother's death.

Jimmy Smits (NYPD Blue and L.A. Law) also stars as Elijah Strait, the father to Sydney. He has been a civil rights attorney for 40 years. He owns and manages his own firm called Strait & Associates. His offices feel very homespun. In fact, the offices look like the inside of a home. His firm feels like it's mostly a family affair. His estrangement from his daughter though might be due to his actual family affairs. Apparently, Elijah cheated on his wife and even fathered a love child. Learning about the affair is what sent his daughter packing. He wants her to come back to the firm. Healing his relationship with her is his goal. He knows that she's a great lawyer and her professional ability is also needed at his firm as well.

It will be interesting to see how Aguilar and Georgaris handle this bit of drama. Yet, they might have rushed things. Because at the start, Sydney isn't working at her father's firm, but quickly in that first episode, she is working at the firm. It seemed likely that the writers would have began with having daughter versus father in the court room before having them be partners. The rivalry between them could have been something the writers played first before having them come together. Unfortunately, the writers skip over that and simply have Sydney come back to her father's firm with little resistance depicted here.

The series instead focuses on clashes the two have as they strategize about a case they're sharing. They bump heads over who's the alpha or who knows better on how to win whatever case is in front of them. Those clashes can't be the driving force of the series. The cases of the week will probably be what drives it. The series will probably settle to being akin to something like Law & Order, but instead of murders and rapes, the show will take on corporate crime and attacking such industries as the pharmaceutical industry and corporate farming.

The success will derive on how clever the writers weave the ups and downs in the court room, as well as how well it weaves the supporting cast. Smits was just a guest star on ABC's How To Get Away With Murder, a legal drama that weaved its supporting cast in fantastic ways. It also introduced its supporting cast and allowed them to shine early, even in the very first episode. This series dizzingly blows past its supporting cast. There's two young male lawyers at Elijah's firm, Jake Reilly, played by Barry Sloane (Revenge and Hollyoaks), and Anthony Little, played by Michael Luwoye (She's Gotta Have It and The Gifted).

The show does blow past them without much consequence or remembrance. Those supporting characters thus felt like filler for the hour. However, the first episode ends with a punch that leads into the second. That punch involves one of those supporting characters, Emerson, played by Stony Blyden. Unfortunately, Emerson is such a non-entity in those initial episodes that the impact of that punch is supremely lessened. Hopefully, as the series progresses, we'll learn more about him and his relationship with his family, but again, it's another example of how the writers here have stumbled in setting up this series.

Rated TV-14.
Running Time: 1 hr.
Mondays at 10PM on NBC.