Law Humor

Entertainment Weekly reports that NBC has halted production on Outlaw, its new legal drama starring Jimmy Smits as a conservative but hard-partying Supreme Court justice with a gambling problem who resigns from the Court to go into private practice as a liberal defense attorney.

Yet another legal show with plots "ripped from the headlines."

Let's see if the reviews can provide some sort of clue as to why production of Outlaw has been stopped after just three episodes. The show has been described as:

• "overblown" (NYT)
• "idiotic" (NY Post)
• "jaw-droppingly simple-minded" (Variety)
• a "near-parody of [other] law shows" (EW)
• possibly "the most preposterous show of the fall" (Boston Herald)
• "either cynical manipulation or just plain silly" (LA Times)
• "so ludicrously dumb that your eyeballs will hurt from rolling so much" (Wash. Post)
• "the biggest lawyer joke of all" (Miami Herald)
• a "piece of sh*t" (Above the Law)
• and -- the only one of the many law-related puns that was any good -- "guilty by reason of inanity" (TV Guide).

The show is not quite dead - the network apparently has five episodes already in the can, so if America suddenly falls in love with Outlaw, production could still resume. Although at this point, that seems about as likely as the show's premise.