Raising the Bar: Season 1

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Mixed or average reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews

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Season Details & Credits

TNT | Season Premiere Date: September 1, 2008

Starring: J. August Richards, Natalia Cigliuti, Jane Kaczmarek

Summary: Bochco returns with a new legal drama set in the criminal justice system.

Creator: Steven Bochco and David Feige

Genre(s): Drama

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Season 1 Episodes

tbd
S1:E10. Shop Till You Drop
Air Date: November 3, 2008
tbd
S1:E9. Roman Holiday
Air Date: October 27, 2008
tbd
S1:E8. Out on the Roof
Air Date: October 20, 2008

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Critic Reviews

Verne Gay

Good show with fine cast, but it all still feels a little too familiar and old-fashioned. Read full review

Robert Bianco

Bar is so slow to start, it might as well be in reverse. The first episode is, simply, flat-out terrible. Which is why, if you're a Bochco fan, you'd be wise to wait for the fourth episode, when Bar moves to mediocre. Read full review

David Hinckley

Bochco delivers instead a solid lawyer show that fits comfortably into the mold formed by dozens of lawyer shows before it. Read full review

Tim Goodman

Although the cases in Raising the Bar are apparently influenced by real-life cases, they tend to be either predictable or predictably unpredictable, however you want to look at it. In combination with the characters, this makes Raising the Bar about an average law series. That's pretty good for TNT, but less than expected from Bochco - fair or not. Read full review

Tom Shales

Seriously, it is hard to take the show very seriously. It does traffic in issues and hot topics--and protests, in its way, the general corruption of the legal system--but not in particularly fresh or original terms. Read full review

Ginia Bellafante

Part of what makes Raising the Bar so loopy is its commitment to this peculiar politics of personal responsibility and to a sappy liberalism that means none of the accused represented by Jerry Kellerman (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and his compatriots in the public defender’s office are ever all that bad. They are just mentally ill, or poor and struggling, or innocent. Read full review

Matt Roush

This shockingly ordinary new legal drama from Steven Bochco should seem right at home amid TNT’s ubiquitous Law & Order reruns. It feels like something you’ve seen before, maybe from way back when L&O was new. Read full review

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User Reviews

MattD.

Oct 8, 2008

It is refreshing to see the courtroom and the justice system portrayed for it is actually like in real life. I am a public defender and for once a tv show actually tells the story of what it is like from a perspective other than the cops and the DA. I identify with the characters in this It is refreshing to see the courtroom and the justice system portrayed for it is actually like in real life. I am a public defender and for once a tv show actually tells the story of what it is like from a perspective other than the cops and the DA. I identify with the characters in this story and when people ask me why I do my job or how can I defend these people I tell them to watch this show because this is the closest it gets. Some of it is over the top but there are judges like that and Da's that play fast and loose with the rules. For those who hate the show, either they are law enforcement or have never been on the inside looking out in a courtroom. Thanks Bochco for looking at the system from all sides and not the law and order side that the public has been spoon fed forever!… Expand