Why You should watch Boston Legal

 So I admit that my blog seems to get more and more random and I pretty much talk about anything and everything, what started as a Video Game blog and then somehow morphed into a Video Games and Horror blog started to get sprinkles of fantasy and science fiction, and then it got some polotics and oppinion pieces and now I am set to talk about a comedy law show, I could try to slide this in without making a fuss I already know the excuse I would use. I would state the case that as this show deals with all kinds of political issues with a sense of passion and humour that this fits in with my whole style, I would argue that I share the same sort of sense of morals as one of the main characters in Boston Legal Alan Shore, in that I believe an individuals morals are more important than the law, in that if it really came down to it I would rather break the law than my own morals. Yet rather than try and slip things in to this blog through the back door I freely admit that the scope and contents of this blog have ever widdend, I guess part of it is that my own intrests have widdend and widdend as time goes on. Plus well there is a deeper point to this blog which I will get to latter.

I have just finished watching the first season of Boston Legal not for the first time, I watched it when it originally came out, I have then watched odd episodes of it out of sequence but I was lucky enough to find the whole 5 seasons second hand and cheap. I had watched season 1 and 2 of Blakes 7 and then ran in to a problem, basically the third season is stuck in the post, so I decided I needed to watch something else. The thing I love about box sets is that its easy to know what to watch next. When you have the free time and decide to try and fill it by watching films you always have this big pause when going from film to film with a series you know what to do if you own the boxset, you simply throw the next episode on.

So why do I want to recomend that everyone watches Boston Legal? Well for a start because it is an absolute return to force for William Shatner. As most people will know Shatner became the icon we all know and love through Star Trek, a science fiction show which was equal parts cowboys and Indians in space bang bang fun and a way for political and world issues to be talked about which other shows couldnt manage. Star Trek could manage it because they wrapped the problems up in face paint and pointy ears, those who just wanted to see it as a silly space show saw it that way those able to read between the lines got to be faced with deep issues being handled in an entertaining way. This is William Shatner again dealing with world issues and politics but this time instead of through the shield of fantasy it is being done through the sheild of humour. I like Boston legal because it makes me do two things I very much enjoy doing one of those is to laugh and the other is to think. There is something utterly delicious about how Boston Legal can have you laughing your socks of one second and then qustioning the very things you hold to be true and believe in the next.

Now days so much of TV's sceduling is filled with reality TV, shows in which we watch real people going about there day to day lives, unfortunatly most of the real people these shows are focused on are in one way or other shallow. Sure you can say there are shows about the rich and the poor so they cover diffrent types of people with diffrent issues, but ultimatly I would say that all of there issues are shallow and that there are only 3 reasons they exist one of which is to feed people with the intelectual equivalent of a cheap TV dinner a lot of people swallow the limited ideas represented in these programmes without even thinking if they are right or wrong. One of the others is to use them to push certain agendas I think for example a portion of the point of Benefit street was to help push the idea that those that are on benefits are scum, it was feeding in to a certain belief a belief that had largly been pushed by the government at the time, but mostly the kind of people who would watch a show like that were the people who would already believe in a set idea or set of ideas and who want these ideas to be reinforced, they dont want to be faced with new concepts or ideas. The last thing I think brings so many of these TV shows to our screen is Schadenfreude. For those who dont know Schadenfreude is a german word/concept it means to take enjoyment in another persons misery, I think we like to see misery in reality TV and laugh at it.

I am not saying that I am any better than anyone else or even that I do not watch reality TV in fact I watched and enjoyed both Celebrity Big Brother and Celebrity dating, I have even watched bits of random American rich person based Celebrity TV shows with my girlfriend. Look they can be fun, it can be enjoyable to take a look into someone elses life but these shows simply do not present people with new ideas and I think that when a person is not presented with new ideas thats when they begin to stagnate to stop moving forward intelectually and to fear the new, to fear change and to become unflinching in there own oppinions which as far as I am concerned is a very bad thing.

If you watch just one season of Boston Legal then you will be met with a whole host of diffrent ideas, you will see court room scenes in which both sides of an idea are debated and most of the time you will find yourself instantly falling on one side or other of the argument, but you will be met with new idea, new arguments for and against and just every now and then you will find that the oppinion you walked in to the episode with has been challanged, you have began to doubt something you were once very certain about, it will make you stop in your tracks and it will make you think, and hopefully in doing so it will make you grow as a person, all while it makes you smile and laugh, it offers entertainment but it also offers from for growth now who can say no to that?