XENITH

Returning to our Rich-People-Are-Bad theme, (it’s a theme! More than one mention makes it a theme, okay?), and Simon Baker brings me to short-lived US legal drama The Guardian.

He has nice hair and looks good in a suit. I’m biased. So, there.

It seems someone at Britain’s Channel Five suffers from a similar fixation, leading to the acquisition of this curiously old-fashioned creation. With gloriously retro opening titles – a minor key, monochrome, slow-motion montage of Baker et al looking earnest and busy as they fight for justice, and a neat little recap explaining the central premise at the start of every episode. As per the sonorous voice-over (very A-Team, no?), high-flying corporate lawyer Nick Fallin (Simon Baker) gets taken down a peg or three for his expensive drug habit, and ordered to repay his debt to society by working as a child advocate.

Plus, any show where a pretty person walks around pretending to be clever in a wood-panelled courtroom, with arcane formulas like ‘due diligence’ and ‘fiduciary duty’, as well as lots of impassioned objections gets me all aquiver and wins my lowly, layperson’s vote.

Thus, our hero begins the series straddling roles in cutthroat corporate practice, placating frowning jowly businessmen as associate in his father’s firm, and as Pittsburgh’s newest crusading legal eagle. Under the thumb of Alvin Masterson, the excellent Alan Rosenberg, seemingly born to play gravel-voiced, principled, and slightly rumpled – another weakness of mine, Nick finds redemption…

Well, actually, I don’t know that yet, but it’s clear we’re heading in that direction. Nick begins the series as an unprepossessing snob, and then reveals he does have a heart beneath the pinstriped body armour – by making a reluctant breakthrough with a traumatised boy following a grisly murder. In decidedly Freudian territory, complete with mistily symbolic dream sequences, Nick regularly confronts his fractious relationship with Fallin Snr (Dabney Coleman). and tragic loss of his mother at a young age. He finds a more sympathetic surrogate father in Masterson, and the series continues to tug at frayed family ties through Nick, his working life, and the peripheral characters.

So far, pretty solid. No surprises, but crisp stories told well per episode, as well as the longer story arc. Thrillingly, for the pragmatic viewer, Nick gets a ticking off early on for the curious tendency of TV lawyers (and CSIs, and pathologists, and doctors and crime novelists) to turn detective, judge, and jury. Thankfully, though, he doesn’t take it too much to heart, as we’re spared endless shots of him on the telephone or at a desk.

There’s even serious points made about the state of child welfare and racial prejudices at the top of America’s legal system. Just before we get too maudlin in a subplot about the overweight paralegal, fierce in the workplace, but lonely and lacking a good man, Barbara (prolific character actress Rusty Schwimmer) shrugs off Nick’s transparent and reluctant chivalry, to reveal a gutsy, grown-up woman with vulnerability, a sense of humour and some killer dance moves. To my mind, a more engaging love interest than the elegant Lulu (Wendy Moniz).

Ah, well. If you’re after unconventional and subversive, The Guardian isn’t it. But, it is well crafted and performed with conviction. At least worth the precious bedding-in time new dramas seldom receive at the behest of all-important viewing-figures. Axed just as Nick grows comfortable in his new life and the antipodean star Baker with the American accent, The Guardian could never compete with that old war-horse Law and Order, destined instead to remain a perennial cable-scheduling curiosity.