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Series · CBS · 1957

Perry Mason

Name: Perry Mason scores 63 — Live Historic
Item: Perry Mason
Rating: 63
Author: Live Historic

63Watch it awake.

The case is the work. He is on the side of the person the room has already decided is guilty.

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The review

Every week a client looks guilty, and the lawyer will not accept the look. The investigator finds the inconvenient fact. The secretary keeps the office. The district attorney is not a villain; he is a man doing the other half of the public job. The courtroom is where a story has to survive a question. From 1957 to 1966 this was the country's idea of a lawyer, and the idea is better than most of the ideas that replaced it.

The weakness is comfort. The right witness usually breaks on the stand, and real courts are not that theatrical. Say so. Then keep the part that is true: a person the room has decided about still gets a defense, and the defense is work. I would put one case on for a teenager who is starting to confuse a confident story with a true one. Ask who benefited from the lie before it broke.

Journal

Keep Perry Mason in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 63. Yours can differ.

The glance

Household and Piety are the thin ones.

Is a marriage, a parent, or a child a real life here, or just a prop?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

Adolescence

78 instead of 63

Adolescence is still a drama show, and it scores 78 instead of 63. What you gain is household: The whole measure is a household that loved a child and did not know him.

The eight

8
Industry
Interviews, documents, and a trial are the labor, and the labor is the hour.
3
Household
Clients have families. His own life is mostly the office and the investigator.
4
Piety
A lie in a courtroom is treated as a serious wrong, which is a kind of reverence.
6
Courage
He stands next to a client the public has already convicted in the papers.
8
Republic
The debt is public: a court that can be wrong, and a defense that makes it prove the charge.
7
Temperance
The show is orderly. Appetite is not the entertainment. The answer is.
8
Truth
Somebody in the room is lying. The hour is built to find which one, and it does.
6
Stewardship
A house can inherit a respect for the question 'who has to prove it?'

Where to watch

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Live Historic · Perry Mason · 63IMDb

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Series · ABC · 1975

Barney Miller

63Watch it awake.

Give me the tired squad room over any cop show that needs a chase to matter.

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The review

The whole show sits in a squad room that needs paint. Barney is a patient captain. The crimes are small and human, and nobody is waiting on a chase to make the hour count. People bring in ordinary trouble. The detectives stay put and do the job. That is the joke, and it is also the point.

I put this on when we are tired of heroes. You will not get a marriage at the center, and you will not get a speech about the city. You get men who owe a neighborhood the unglamorous shift. The work matters because it is work. Skip it if a story feels unfinished without a siren. Stay if you want a picture of attention, which is what this precinct actually sells.

Journal

Keep Barney Miller in the record.