Legal Drama

I didn't expect to get my heart broken quite so soon in this job. This summer, two great shows appeared as if from a planet more advanced than ours -- AMC's "Mad Men" and FX's "Damages." But while "Mad Men" has, justifiably, grabbed magazine covers and top 10 lists, "Damages" has gone begging. Indeed, FX has not committed to renewing the show and I don't quite know how to come to terms with this. Glenn Close, people. As Patty Hewes, the toughest lawyer you'll ever hate to want on your side.

Scheming is in danger of becoming a lost art on television. Ditto malice and guile. Lying we've got plenty of; cheating, violence, your basic psychotic rage are all pretty well represented, especially on cable. But guileful, malicious scheming, that requires an artist. Someone with a face full of sunshine, a mind six steps ahead of everyone else and a heart that pumps sleet. Someone like Glenn Close. Or rather, Patty Hewes as played by Glenn Close on "Damages," which premieres tonight on FX.

Anna Nicole Smith: With her blow-up-doll curves, the former stripper and Red Lobster waitress became a Playmate of the Year and Guess jeans model before marrying a billionaire octogenarian, who died 14 months later, leaving her to fight over his estate with his adult son. That legal battle went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. During the filming of her reality show, Smith said she had two audiences: "large women and college boys." She died Feb.

How can a hit television series like "Frasier" gross $1.5 billion and yet be $200 million in the red? That's the issue at the center of a recent lawsuit filed against Paramount Pictures by two talent agencies seeking answers to how "Frasier" -- the Emmy-winning NBC sitcom starring Kelsey Grammer that ran for 11 seasons -- can claim that it never turned a net profit even though it was one of the most successful shows in television history.

Every few years a couple of filmmakers with talent to burn but almost nothing to show for it seem to come from out of nowhere to make a surprise hit movie. Then their film goes to DVD and sales soar even higher. And, also seemingly overnight, a franchise is born. At least that's the way it happened for "Saw," a horror-thriller released last year by Lions Gate Films starring Leigh Whannell, Cary Elwes, Danny Glover and Monica Potter. The film was made on a shoestring budget of $1.

For years, David E. Kelley had lived with the fear. The lawyer-turned-writer/producer, known for his evocative fictional legal eagles and his prolific way with words, sensed it was only a matter of time before the booming reality genre he so despised crossed into the television world he had created. "When reality television was proliferating, I was a great champion of the idea -- I so loved it -- that I thought, 'Oh, my God, what's gonna happen next?"

Kent Walker says he has a recurring and vivid nightmare: I go into the courtroom and I walk up to the witness stand. There are cameras all over the place. My brother Kenny is staring at me like he hates me. My mom has got her back turned to me. She's heaving. I can't tell whether she's laughing or crying. I start talking, but I don't even know what I'm talking about. Everyone is looking at me. They're saying, 'What are you doing, trying to defend your brother?' Then my mom turns around.

It would make a great plot for a movie: A former Army sergeant, a onetime Army Reserve captain and their Army-wannabe buddy find post-military success as stuntmen, technical advisors and owners of a thriving movie-prop business. Except that this one might have a bad ending.

"This is really the first genre film I've done, and that's why I wanted to do it," director Carl Franklin explains about his new legal thriller "High Crimes," which opens Friday. "I wanted to exercise a little bit in the pop culture vernacular, which I hadn't had a chance to do." The courtroom drama has been a studio staple since sound came to Hollywood, and it's as popular today as ever, if not more so--Paramount in particular has churned out a seemingly endless series of the thrillers.