Shark Puts the Bite Back in Courtroom Drama

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Courtroom dramas, like medical series, have been a mainstay of network television from its earliest days. And while both genres have had their share of classics, in recent years they have shown their age. Both ER and Law and Order, once ratings powerhouses, are limping into oblivion. A case could be made that today's audiences, bombarded with information at every turn, no longer have the patience for procedural dramas.

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Shark, the new CBS legal drama starring James Woods, turns the courtroom drama on its ear in much the same way FOX's House skewered medical TV conventions. Both series have protagonists who are wounded renegades reluctantly redeeming themselves by mentoring a group of avid but naive proteges. While the set-ups are superficially similar, the commonalities between the two end there.

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Woods is cast as Sebastian Stark, who, when we first encounter him, is a celebrity LA defense attorney whose credo is "trial is war," and winning is all that matters. Justice, he reasons, is left to God. It's a stance what doesn't win him any friends in the Prosecutor's office, who disparagingly refer to him as "Shark." But when a high-profile client beats his wife to death hours after Stark won an acquittal for him, the haughty defense attorney has an epiphany of sorts, chilled wtih a bout with depression. He's forced to face the consequenses of his cutthroat tactics, and that makes him a shark with no teeth--and a man in search of redemption.

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He gets his chance when the mayor coaxes him into heading up a new high-profile crime unit in the LA District Attorney's office. For a man whose only motivation is winning, this is an ideal avenue for him to get back into the game. There's only one catch: his new boss is his former nemesis, Jessica Devlin (Jeri Ryan.) As to be expected, philosophical and ethical sparks fly, despite their grudging respect for each other.

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Further complicating matters for Stark is his devotion to his 16 year old daughter, who serves as a sort of moral counterbalance for Stark's take-no-prisoners professional life. Couple that with his tough love approach to his proteges, the inexperienced prosecutors that comprise his unit, and the possibilities for conflict in this drama on a regular basis are boundless.

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The pilot episode introduces all the principals without falling into detailed backstories, around a framework centering on an aspiring pop diva's murder trial. It's a terse story, skillfully directed by Spike Lee, whose visual sense adds an immediacy to even the most sedate moments. But in the end, Shark is a showcase for James Woods. Nobody plays smarmy characters better than he does, and his talents are played to the extreme here. Woods has always been able to bring a dimension to a superficially unsympathetic character that makes an audience empathasize with him. In Shark, he's chewing up scenery that would befuddle even the likes of Jack Nicholson. And he does it with a style that makes you want to replay scenes for dialogue alone.

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CBS obviously has high hopes for Shark, slotting in that Thursday spot that ER has dominated for years. If it can maintain the pacing and writing of the pilot, Shark could very well be the crown jewel of Thursday night network TV.