USA Does It Again: Advance Review of FAIRLY LEGAL

It is unusual for a US series to have completed production on an entire season before it even premieres, and even more unusual for reviewers to have a chance to get a glimpse of a full season in advance, but that’s the case for USA Network’s new series Fairly Legal, premiering January 20. Production on the first season is wrapped and the episodes are “locked”, so USA decided to be generous and sent out screeners with not just the series premiere, but an episode from mid-season and the season finale. Would that other shows got the same treatment!

The first installment of Fairly Legal is what you’d expect from a USA series: it’s beautifully filmed and filled with beautiful people, our lead character is spunky and quirky, the supporting characters have potential, and the case of the week is secondary to the characters themselves. USA has built its brand on the “characters welcome” platform, and Fairly Legal continues that tradition, this time expanding the network’s women-fronted offerings by giving viewers adorable and somewhat overwhelmed mediator Kate Reed (Sarah Shahi) as the lead and her ice queen stepmother – who happens to be almost the same age as Kate – Lauren Reed (Virginia Williams) as a strong secondary character. Both women are dealing with the recent death of the Reed patriarch – Kate’s father and Lauren’s husband – who left behind a successful law firm. Lauren is a managing partner in the firm while Kate has stopped practicing law and become a mediator for the firm in protest of the rigidity of the legal system.

Read our interview with Sarah Shahi.

In addition to the two women, we have Michael Trucco as Kate’s estranged husband who she still sleeps with on occasion, Baron Vaughn as her trusty assistant Leo, and Ethan Embry as her brother Spencer. Gerald McRaney has a recurring role as a gruff judge who “hates” Kate but really is the father figure she needs now that her own is gone.

Exposition is heavy in the pilot, as is often the case, and occasionally the cliche’s made me wince, but there’s enough appeal to keep viewer interest. I still can’t decide whether the use of Wizard of Oz ring tones and pictures to clue us into how Kate feels about the various people in her life is clever or overly cutesy, but that might be my anti-Oz bias showing.

Kate’s journey from grief-stricken daughter struggling with how to get Truth out of Justice spans the season and as the episodes progress, so does she to a degree. I could see her character growth from episode to episode, but I could also see the lessons she wasn’t learning, which makes the season finale both surprising and not. The final episode of the first season chronicles a particularly challenging day for Kate, and the ending is much braver than I expected. While it could never be called gritty, Fairly Legal isn’t putting rose-colored glasses on Kate as a character. Rather than show us her flaws and brush them off as “ain’t she cute” quirks, there are consequences for her actions, reaching all the way back to the pilot. By now, though, viewers will likely be so invested in Kate as a character that they’ll be eagerly awaiting season 2 to find out how she handles these consequences.

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I also found Lauren’s story compelling. Another grief-stricken soul, she is the much-younger widow of Kate’s father. Left with a large law firm to manage, Lauren must shore up confidence with their clients and navigate the old boys network her husband had infiltrated even as she deals with a stepdaughter/employee who hates her.

As USA Network expands their original programming, it’s nice to see the addition of more strong female leads and supporting characters. As much as I enjoy Psych and White Collar, the network has been a little testosterone heavy.

Fairly Legal premieres January 20 on USA Network after the return of Royal Pains.