The end of Boston Legal

Well, stick a fork in it, it's finally over. After years of putting it in shitty time slots and lots of Emmy and Golden Globe wins and nominations, ABC put it out to pasture. This year they scaled back the cast to about a third of what it used to be, and the writers took every opportunity to take shots at the network.

The show got pretty wacky as time went on, much the same way that Ally McBeal did, but the core characters were consistently entertaining. The core story lines throughout the show's run revolved around the friendship and antics of Capt. Kirk's character and James Spader.

Spader's character, Alan Shore, enjoyed a transformation from an ethically challenged bastard (established in The Practice, where Boston Legal was spun off from), to a guy championing various just and moral causes.

On top of that was the constant political agenda, which wasn't even a little subtle. It was right out there. A lot of it was very left leaning and timely, but I was still surprised at how they'd often sit on a neutral line on some issues that made you really question the issue.

There were a lot of memorable characters over the years. Rhona Mitra, the original Lara Croft model, also went came from the parent show and was on for a few years. The Katie Lloyd character in the last two seasons showed great promise too, though she was minimized the last season despite being the only person in the regular cast under 40. Recurring guests like Michael J. Fox I think really gave the show a lot of credibility despite the silly factor.

Interesting gossip about the end of the show here, but I do think it had a pretty good run overall with four and a half seasons. I'll definitely miss it.