Featured TV on DVD Review: The Guardian: Season Three

February 7, 2011

The Guardian: Season Three - Buy from Amazon

The Guardian was one of dozens of courtroom dramas that populated network television around the same time. Every year saw a number of changes in the cast, which is usually a bad sign, as it tends to mean the writers haven't quite found the right tone. By the time the final season came around, was the show finally finding its footing, or did it just fade away?

The Show

Simon Baker and Dabney Coleman star as Nick and Burton Fallin, father and son lawyers. At the very beginning of the series, Nick Fallin is sentenced to 1500 hours of community service, which he is to serve helping at risk kids at the Legal Services of Pittsburgh under the supervision of Alvin Masterson. By the time the third season starts, there have been several changes in personnel at both LSP and Nick's corporate job and it continues early into season three with Lulu taking over after Alvin was fired. Unfortunately, the behind-the-scenes of the LSP are not as compelling as they should be. They are more interesting than the corporate legal wrangling, but that's not saying much.

The highlight of the show continues to be the community service Nick is involved with. (Although sometimes the corporate end of the law blends in with his community service, like when he tries to help a girl that's sick due the pollution of one of their corporate clients.) The show is most powerful when it is about helping the kids. Unfortunately, that's not the focus of the show. In fact, the show lacks focus altogether bouncing between the child services cases, corporate cases, corporate politics, personal troubles, etc.

On a side note, I couldn't get over the number of recognizable guest stars on this show this season. Some of these were famous at the time, but because the show dealt with child services cases, a lot them were unknown when the show aired. Gina Torres had a recurring role as a new lawyer at Fallin & Fallin. Tania Raymonde played a girl with cancer who was likely made sick by pollution. Scout Taylor-Compton has a couple guest shots as a prostitute the folks at LSP try to help. Chris Pine, Doug Jones, and others also make appearances. This season even has the very first role by Chloe Grace Moretz, making this the second review I've done that featured both Hit Girl and Captain Kick, although they were not in the same episode

The Extras

There are no extras on this DVD. There are also no play all buttons, but there are proper chapter placements and subtitles.

The Verdict

When I first reviewed this show, I thought it had promise but never quite reached it. Sadly, The Guardian: Season Three still doesn't reach its potential. Even if it wasn't canceled after this season, I doubt it would have. It wasn't showing a lot of improvement.


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