You are the judges too

Jane said: I think that I need to start watching "The Jury" all the time now, if it always has where it tells you the real story at the end all flashback like.

Yes yes and yes, that is totally what is what gets me with that show.

When they first started showing the commercials for "The Jury," Chris was all, "Hey, we need to watch that," and I was all, "Eew," because despite the Tom Fontana/Barry Levinson pedigree it looked plodding and deadly and I was endlessly disturbed by the presence of model-turned-actress Shalom Harlow.

So we watched the show and I was like, "This is plodding and deadly," because you don't really get to know the so-called "regular" characters, who are whichever staff happen to be involved in the case. Excepting the clumsy "Getting to know the staff" interludes which are about as appealing as the current Burger King ad campaign, and I hate that Burger King ad campaign. Aside from that, the first fully-formed opinion I had about it was that I really really really hated that pseudo-hipster pseudo-nerd bailiff, and that's gotten exponentially worse with each episode. I truly actively hate him and want someone to run through the courthouse with a gun and kill him in the face.

Now, even with all my sitting around and rolling my eyes about it, I have discovered that I am a little obsessed with the show. It's totally the competitive "Who'll get it right?" element of the storytelling, with the actual crime revealed at the end. It's even worse than "CSI," because "CSI" is engineered to swerve you — when I watch it I'm just trying to foresee all the swerves. Same with "Without a Trace," a.k.a. "The Enrique Murciano Finds Lost People Hour." But on "The Jury," the outcome — "the truth" rather than "the decision," I guess — could totally be obvious and straightforward, but because the attorneys and the jurors are throwing out all these crazy insane possibilities that could all totally be taken seriously, you could just as easily be swayed from what you think in your gut is right. And you really don't want to guess wrong in what's basically a 50-50 shot at being right. Right? It's ingenious.

They're on the verge of getting canned if this report is any indication, so maybe they should kill off the bailiff and hire more "Oz" people to give it a shot in the butt. Jon Seda was looking good, man, who knew?

Posted by Kim at July 2, 2004 10:17 AM | Moving Pictures