Critic Reviews

It's high-pitched, unforgettable, knockout, electrifying TV...There should be a law requiring more series like NBC's new L.A. Law. [15 Sept 1986, p.C1]

Looks like the best new TV series of the fall season, filled with fascinating people, ingenious turns of plot, strong, offbeat drama, an unmistakable air of realism and some delicious bits of black comedy. [15 Sept 1986, p.C-1]

This is L.A. Law, which not only is the best offering of the new television season, but the best pilot for a new show since Hill Street Blues' debut six TV seasons ago. It will, as they say, make you laugh; it will make you cry. It brandishes a superior cast and a wit and style that elevate it immediately into the rarefied Hill Street/St. Elsewhere atmospheres -- shows whose structure of interwoven story lines that dangle from episode to episode it shares. [14 Sept 1986, p.K1]

So rousingly well done that it seems to come from a different solar system than most contemporary episodic television shows, and yet too many rapturous panegyrics could spoil some of the fun. The two-hour pilot for the series...is so terribly and industriously entertaining that you hate to see the program lumped in with things that are supposedly "good for you." This isn't a John Chancellor commentary. This is living, breathing matter -- clever, thoughtful, ribald and hard-boiled. [15 Sept 1986, p.B1]

While pop-culture touchstones from Dallas to Twin Peaks shrivel up and die, L.A. Law just keeps getting juicier.

A sharp, intelligent, splendidly entertaining venture that deftly draws upon a world of callousness and commitment, long hours and short fuses. [15 Sept 1986, p.5]

L.A. Law remains consistently, almost defiantly, entertaining.

Overpopulation is now L.A. Law's biggest problem. Talking to fans and reading reviews, I seem to be in the minority on this, but I continue to think that Law made a strategic mistake in pushing these new characters at us so soon after the introduction of the lawyers played by Amanda Donohoe, John Spencer, and Cecil Hoffmann last season.

L.A. Law still has some of its earlier problems ... but that Law is once again worth fretting over is a measure of its startling renewal.

The cast is appealing -- particularly Hamlin, Eikenberry and Richard Dysart as the firm's fatherly senior partner -- and Bochco has become TV's most expert juggler of plots and characters. Yet the first episode of L.A. Law is considerably less daring than advertised.