Breaking the 'Law'

From "House" to "Shark," unsympathetic characters are all the rage on TV these days, and they've expanded to women, at least on cable, with the likes of Holly Hunter's "Saving Grace" and Glenn Close's "Damage."

Now that trend comes to the major broadcast networks with the debut of "Canterbury's Law" at 7 p.m. Monday -- on Fox WFLD Channel 32, of course. With the other major networks still reeling from the writers' strike, Fox has become the most ambitious and aggressive major network with all the new shows it had stored up and ready to go at midseason, following in the considerable wake of "American Idol."

There is such a thing as being overly aggressive, however, and "Canterbury's Law" falls victim to that excess. In spite of the best efforts of former "ER" sweetheart Julianna Margulies and likable "Angels in America" star Ben Shenkman, this legal series proves too unsympathetic for its own good.

Or maybe it's just too predictable, as imagined by Denis Leary and Jim Serpico, the people who brought you the unsympathetic and over-the-top FX firefighter series, "Rescue Me."

The pilot gets in a viewer's face right away with the revelation that Margulies' defense attorney Elizabeth Canterbury is having an affair with a client. (Similarly, "Saving Grace" opened with Hunter having an affair with her cop partner.)

From there, she never goes soft, from cocksure legal pronouncements -- "My mere presence speaks volumes," she insists -- to cutthroat courtroom tactics.

"I could love the person on the stand body and soul," she tells a young associate, "and still rip their throat out on cross(-examination)."

Margulies won an Emmy as the sweet if somewhat depressive nurse Carole Hathaway on "ER," where after all she was George Clooney's longtime lover. Yet since leaving that series she's displayed a penchant for edgier roles, for instance playing a recovering addict and potential love interest for both Tony and Christopher on "The Sopranos." Here she looks a little older, but harder, while still being fit enough to look fine whether in a dress suit or a bedroom scene, and there are enough close-ups of her spike heels to placate a devoted foot fetishist.

The problem is that, as in James Wood's "Shark," the pat plot developments don't live up to the vividness of the character. She makes a legal gambit by urging a client to lie on the stand, then goads another witness into revealing himself a lout, only to conclude matter-of-factly, "I did what I had to do."

Shenkman has great potential as her lead partner but finds himself limited to playing the role of her conscience, her second-chair Jiminy Cricket. Steppenwolf's Terry Kinney turns up as the local district attorney, but it's unclear if he'll be a regular, although the series could certainly use him as someone for Canterbury to spar with.

If Margulies' Canterbury is nothing if not consistently acerbic, the series does pulls its punches by softening things up around her, such as giving her a supportive cuckold of a spouse in the graying Aidan Quinn. In the end it pulls out a typically cheesy Leary-esque plot twist by revealing they have a missing child, with backstory no doubt to come in the weeks ahead.

"Canterbury's Law" is a bold choice on the part of Margulies, who abandons her America's dour sweetheart image to play something new and daring, but on the whole the show isn't as courageous as she is. It's afraid of being too unsympathetic, of giving viewers a woman who is every bit as flawed as the lead characters on "House" or "Shark." As daring as she is in going against type, the series can't transcend its genre as a hackneyed legal drama. In the end, she's likely to have to sue for nonsupport.

In the air

Rosy picture at TCM

Turner Classic Movies' sometimes stodgy and forbidding film series "The Essentials" gets a welcome new look when Rose McGowan joins Robert Osborne as the regular co-host at 7 p.m. Saturday with a screening of "The Apartment." She should help bring younger viewers to the classic film channel.

This year's 'Model'

The CW's "America's Next Top Model" arrives for an open casting call from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel, 163 E. Walton Place, Chicago. Aspiring contestants need to be at least 5-foot-7 and between 18 and 27 years old. Text ANTM to 97999 to get details, or see cwtv.com/thecw/topmodel-cycle11-casting.

Kay 'Back on the beat'

Retired WMAQ Channel 5 political editor Dick Kay returns to punditry with the new weekly two-hour talk show "Back on the Beat" debuting at 2 p.m. Saturday on progressive WCPT 820-AM.

Waste Watcher's choice

A comically nostalgic TV series gets turned into an even worse movie in "The Mod Squad," the 1999 remake of the '60s show. Claire Danes, Giovanni Ribisi and Omar Epps are the three hip new counter-culture cops. It airs at 10 p.m. today on WPWR Channel 50.