L.A. Law
[1] Created by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher,[2] it centers on the partners, associates and staff of a Los Angeles law firm.The show contains many of Bochco's trademark features, including an ensemble cast, large number of parallel story lines, social drama, and off-the-wall humor.In addition to its main cast, L.A. Law was also well known for featuring then-relatively unknown actors and actresses in guest starring roles, who went on to greater success in film and television including Don Cheadle, Jeffrey Tambor, Kathy Bates, David Schwimmer, Shelley Hack, Jay O. Sanders, James Avery, Gates McFadden, Bryan Cranston, CCH Pounder, Kevin Spacey, Richard Schiff, Carrie-Anne Moss, William H. Macy, Stephen Root, Christian Slater, Steve Buscemi, and Lucy Liu.Several episodes of the show also included celebrities such as Vanna White, Buddy Hackett, and Mamie Van Doren appearing as themselves in cameo roles.The show was a success with critics and audiences, ranking in the Nielsen Top 30 for its first six seasons and winning 15 Emmy Awards throughout its run, four of which were for Outstanding Drama Series.The opening credits sequence of every episode began with a close-up of a car trunk being slammed shut revealing a personalized license plate reading "LA LAW".Two different musical openings for the show's theme were used: a saxophone riff for episodes that were lighter in tone; and an ominous synthesizer chord, for more serious story lines.The original time period was Friday, 10:00 p.m., following Miami Vice, but after struggling there, it assumed NBC's prized Thursday, 10:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. Central) time slot in the Must See TV primetime block from another Bochco-produced show, Hill Street Blues (from which Bochco had been dismissed at the end of that show's fifth season by then-MTM President Arthur Price).The scene in season 5 where Leland McKenzie (Richard Dysart) was shown in bed with his enemy Rosalind Shays (Diana Muldaur) was ranked as the 38th greatest moment in television (the list originally appeared in an issue of EGG Magazine).[16] The show tied itself into the events of the Los Angeles riots of 1992, which were prompted by the acquittal of four white police officers who were put on trial for the videotaped beating of black motorist Rodney King.In the eighth and final season, the characters of Eli Levinson (Alan Rosenberg) and Denise Iannello (Debi Mazar) were transplanted from the canceled Bochco legal series Civil Wars.However, ER tested so well that Warner Bros. executives campaigned network president Warren Littlefield to give that series the prized Thursday slot.[19][20] On August 4, 2020, Hamlin, Dey, Smits, Bernsen, Rachins, Greene and Underwood reunited on the Stars in the House video podcast to raise money for The Actors Fund.[30] Another wrote in the issue that the show "subtracts eighty to ninety-nine percent of lawyers' real work lives" and overemphasized the glamor of the rest.The series shares the Emmy Award record for most acting nominations by regular cast members (excluding the guest performer category) for a single series in one year with Hill Street Blues, The West Wing and Game of Thrones For the 1988–1989 season, nine cast members were nominated for Emmys.