Television

Standard Of Review: Fox's 'The Grinder' Mocks Legal Procedurals, But Is Still A Work In Progress

The show demonstrates a masterful ability to lampoon legal procedurals, but it has numerous kinks that still need to be fixed.

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As I have argued numerous times ever since my very first column, I am not a fan of television legal procedural dramas. I find that legal procedurals rely too much on gimmicks, eschew character development, and unrealistically depict the legal world. Accordingly, I was excited when I heard about the new Fox legal series The Grinder, a comedy starring Rob Lowe as the former star of a popular fictional legal procedural. Even in the first three episodes, the show has already demonstrated a masterful ability to lampoon the kind of legal drama that I dislike. However, the show has numerous kinks that still need to be fixed (this column contains spoilers through this past Tuesday’s episode).

Lowe plays Dean Sanderson, Jr., an actor who just finished his run as the star of a fictional long-running television legal series, called The Grinder, in which he plays a character nicknamed, coincidentally, Grinder (for ease of reference, I am going to refer to the show that airs on Tuesday nights on FOX as The Grinder, and the fictional show that Dean previously starred on as the “show within the show”). Despondent and directionless after the show concludes for reasons that have not been adequately explained, Dean returns to his hometown of Boise, Idaho, where his brother Stewart (Fred Savage) and his father Dean Sanderson, Sr. (William Devane) are both local attorneys. After watching his brother’s glossophobia in court, Dean helps Stewart win a case for an elderly couple that was being wrongfully evicted from their apartment. Emboldened, Dean decides to forgo his acting career and to stay in Boise, aiding Stewart with his legal cases. Dean also moves in with Stewart’s family, which includes his wife Debbie (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) and his teenage children Lizzie (Hana Hayes) and Ethan (Connor Kalopsis).

Unquestionably, the strongest aspect of The Grinder so far has been its skewering of legal procedurals. I laughed several times at the frequent clips of the show within the show on The Grinder, as Dean (as Grinder) spits out legal clichés left and right and flouts the advice of his geeky co-worker Pincus (I was disappointed that this character was not named “Minkus,” in homage to the nerdy character on Boy Meets World, which of course starred Fred Savage’s brother Ben), who constantly tells Dean what he cannot do. In response to Pincus’s frequent admonitions that Dean “can’t” do something, Dean’s typical refrain is “but what if we could?” The show also parodies the heavy-handed imagery that plagues legal shows; for example, the final shot of one fake episode of the show within the show is a close-up of the scales of justice.

I hope that The Grinder continues to mine this fake television show for laughs. Bojack Horseman is a recent example of a show that has continually explored the canon of a fake show within a show, such as the relationships between the actors and the arguments between the showrunner and the network. The Grinder should do the same here, hopefully developing the mythology of the show within the show.

The Grinder also has some enjoyable meta moments. In the line that perhaps got the biggest laugh out of me in the first three episodes, the second episode of The Grinder opens with Dean critiquing the second episode of the show within a show, and noting that they had to “reset the premise.” By beginning its own second episode with a dig at this notorious second-episode sitcom staple, The Grinder shows a playful meta streak that I hope continues in future episodes (I can’t wait until Dean enthusiastically plays the saxophone in a reference to the infamous scene in St. Elmo’s Fire).

I am also intrigued as to how the show plans to handle its actual legal scenes (as opposed to those in the show within the show) in the future. The first episode essentially eschewed any semblance of verisimilitude, as the star-struck judge allowed Dean to cross-examine a witness over the light objection of the bemused opposing counsel, played by guest star Kumail Nanjani. However, in the second episode, the opposing counsel is Claire Lacoste (Natalie Morales), a young no-nonsense attorney who is not a fan of the show within a show and is extremely annoyed by Dean’s presence (Claire joins Stewart’s firm at the end of episode two, so I fully expect that Dean and Claire will be a couple by the end of the season). The third episode was more like the first, as Stewart’s opposing counsel actually interrupted Stewart during a settlement conference to request that Dean speak. It is imperative that the show finds the right balance between portraying everyone in the Boise legal community as fanboy morons and having characters that actually are good at practicing law. Lowe and Morales’s previous show Parks & Recreation is a model in that regard; most of the townspeople of Pawnee were hilarious idiots, but there were enough competent individuals (like Lowe’s character Chris Traeger) that the audience could believe that the town could actually function.

In order to do this, the show needs a firm handle on all its main characters. So far, Dean has been portrayed as slightly vapid and naively idealistic, but skilled in certain areas, such as negotiation and theatrics. Due to the fact that Lowe made a cartoonish character feel real on Parks, I am cautiously optimistic that the show will find the right balance with Dean.

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Fred Savage – best known as Kevin Arnold in the seminal television series The Wonder Years – has not seriously acted in many years, instead settling into a nice career as a TV director, directing multiple episodes of comedies such as Party Down, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Happy Endings. Savage has been solid so far, but it is imperative that he makes sure that Stewart continues being neurotic without turning too much into a dweeb.

With the exception of Morales, who, with little screen time, seems to have a fairly well-defined character, most of the supporting cast needs work. The biggest misfire so far is veteran character actor Devane, who has had a very long career but is perhaps best known to modern audiences from his work in 24. Despite being present in many scenes, Dean, Sr. is a complete non-character who seems to serve only to encourage Dean, Jr.’s whims, without having any other character trait. If Dean, Sr.did not exist, these first few episodes would have been exactly the same.

Equally problematic are Debbie, Lizzie, and Ethan. I have no problem with any of the actors (Kalopsis has been especially strong so far), but the domestic scenes are too “sitcomy,” treading such well-worn tropes as parents’ disapproval of their children’s significant other. It is too late for this, but I would have removed the family characters from the show completely, as they slow The Grinder down. It is extremely difficult for a comedy to simultaneously be a “family comedy” and a “workplace comedy” (how many comedies have ever successfully simultaneously navigated these two areas? The only show that comes to mind is The Dick Van Dyke Show); The Grinder would have had a much greater chance of success if it had focused on being a workplace comedy only.

As with other legal television shows I have reviewed, I plan to revisit The Grinder a few times over the course of the season to see how it progresses. And I am going to place the over/under on the inevitable Danica McKellar guest star appearance at episode twelve.

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Harry Graff is a litigation associate at a firm, but he spends days wishing that he was writing about film, television, literature, and pop culture instead of writing briefs. If there is a law-related movie, television show, book, or any other form of media that you would like Harry Graff to discuss, he can be reached at harrygraff19@gmail.com. Be sure to follow Harry Graff on Twitter at @harrygraff19.

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