Wednesday, March 09, 2005
BLIND JUSTICE
Blind Justice, which premiered on ABC last night, suffered from overexposure caused by excessive promos. I felt I had seen the whole show long before I tuned in.
It turned out that I did, in fact, know almost everything about the show except the plot.
Many mystery plots have the following structure: (1) find clue and realize whom to interview; (2) interview suspect and [continue with (1) and repeat].
This show, though it is interesting to watch, and Ron Eldard, who plays the main character, Jim Dunbar, is very good, still suffered from three problems in the first episode, which the show is going to have to overcome, I think, if it going to succeed. First, too many of the clues depended on the blind man's acute sense of smell, sound, touch, empathy, etc. (ie the writers were trying too hard to empower his blindness), and that will get old, fast. Second, too many of the "realizations" were quite astonishing leaps of detective-atorial brilliance (ie they were unbelievable). And finally, the relationships between the characters will have to become complex enough that there is more to watch in the actual show than is aready evident in the promos.
Despite all that, I have an interest in the characters, and I'd like to see more of them. I'm hoping that the writers will find ways to make their lives and cases more and more interesting in the weeks to come.
