Pilot Review: The Firm

The Firm (NBC)
Premiered Jan 8 at 9pm

If you’re looking for a good law show to watch on Sunday nights and haven’t heard of “The Good Wife,” this could be the show for you. It’s not terribly good, however, and doesn’t have much appeal. After a frantic start foretelling the middle of this show’s presumable first season arc, the show slows down in a major way, explaining that Mitch McDeere was a whistleblower in his old firm ten years earlier, an act that resulted in a hit being put out on his life and his subsequent enrollment in the Witness Protection Program. Foolishly, Mitch decides that the death of the mobster who was after him means that he’s safe and can start using his real name again. It’s not even clear that the mob chase is going to be central to the plot, sort of like Bridget’s mob ties on “Ringer,” and instead there’s a super-evil firm which Mitch joins. This show is supposed to be a thriller rather than a drama, but it’s bogged down by unnecessarily excessive cases having to do with issues of morality and family. Josh Lucas is a strong enough actor, but this role doesn’t ask much from him. Molly Parker from “Swingtown” and this past season of “Dexter” tries her very best to make Mitch’s wife Abby an important character, and this show features not one but two former Cylons, with Callum Keith Rennie taking on the role of sleazy private investigator Ray and Tricia Helfer playing Alex, the head of the evil firm. Juliette Lewis’ part is most lamentable, as the token sarcastic, promiscuous office secretary. This show feels like it came out of the 1990s, and that’s not meant to be a compliment. It’s just not a twenty-first-century series.

How will it work as a series? Having a set endpoint or middle point is a risky gamble, and only certain shows have pulled it off, mainly because others have been cancelled before finishing their arcs. This show will have an easier time if it picks one timeline and sticks with it rather than jumping around from place to place. This seems like it will be much more of a week-to-week kind of show rather than a standalone-centric drama, but the case in the first episode means that it could be either.
How long will it last? Not long at all. The show had better perform decently in its first regular timeslot airing tomorrow night at 10pm, otherwise it’s off the air for good. The pilot rated lower than “The Cape” did in 2011, which is a horrifying statistic. Thursday nights should be better, but I can’t imagine this one making it all the way through its twenty-two episode order.

Pilot grade: C