FAIRLY LEGAL Benched Review: Too Cuddly?

I know this “advance” review is coming in close to the actual airing of the Fairly Legal episode Benched but you know how hectic the TV world is on Thursdays. Oh, you don’t? Well, it’s busy!

Anyway. I love the show, but didn’t necessarily LOVE this episode. I want to urge the writers and producers to make this show as smart as the pilot showed us it can be. We don’t need cuddly fairytale endings that don’t seem at all believable. We like SNARK! We like seeing Kate outwit people. The storyline in Benched felt a little bit more like a Lifetime movie, where Kate is a do-gooder who just can’t help herself. She seems more like a meddler than a mediator at times. I like seeing her clever tricks. There is one instance of this at the beginning of Benched, where Kate proves it’s good to know the law. (Something that I’m okay with not learning because even Legally Blonde made it seem intimidating.)

Note: TOAST!
Note: Leo is damn smart.

The two characters that stood out in this episode, for me, were Kate (Sarah Shahi) and Leo (Baron Vaughn). And I’m slow to the table about realizing that Leonardo is very skillfully named. See, Leo is the lion in Kate’s Wizard of Oz life, and Leo = lion. Ah, ha!

Fairly Legal BENCHED Episode Synopsis: Kate’s nemesis Judge Nicastro assigns her to mediate a case between a high school football coach and the angry parents who claim his old school methods border on abuse.

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