Franklin and Bash // Series 1 Boxset
"Frowning people say “objection” a lot. Gown-clad people say “overruled” almost as frequently. Women take their clothes off. In the courtroom. Seriously..."
Franklin and Bash. Season 1.
Charles Dickens once said “If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.” Well, that may have been true for Victorian England, with its rickets, cholera and infant mortality, but this isn’t history, this is “Franklin and Bash”, a courtroom comedy, and our eponymous heroes are not just good people, they’re handsome, well-dressed and witty people to boot.
The titular F ‘n’ B, played by Breckin Meyer (Garfield) and Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Saved by the Bell) are, as you may have guessed, not your usual bookish, buttoned-down, believable lawyers. They are maverick, grinning, out-of-the-box lawyers that treat the courtroom like a theatre and win cases by enthralling jurors with maverick charm and out-of-the-box charisma. Frowning people say “objection” a lot. Gown-clad people say “overruled” almost as frequently. Women take their clothes off. In the courtroom. Seriously...
And so it goes until Malcolm McDowell (expertly played here by Malcolm McDowell) poaches them for his frowny, grown-up law firm. Will there be clashes of personality? You betcha! Will there be sexual tension between our heroes and female partners at the new firm? Yes, Sir! Will there be engaging, plausible plots and a cast of well-realised, multi-dimensional supporting characters? No. No, there will not.
And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is my problem with F ‘n’ B. The central bromance is well-played, occasionally charming and, when they avoid laboured innuendo, frequently funny. Their dialogue is often snappy, and the chemistry between Meyer and Gosselaar can be a joy to watch. However, their surroundings seem to have been drawn with crayon by a hormone-addled adolescent boy.
The story-lines are absurd (but, alas, not in a knowing way) and are populated by tired clichés and paper-thin stereotypes. The way women are portrayed is especially cringe-worthy, being as they are almost exclusively air-brushed eye-candy of the most saccharine kind. Indeed, the writer’s idea of fleshing-out a female character appears to be hiring an actress with bigger boobs.
Typical of this lazy writing is their token ethnic Asian-American underling who takes care of (yep, you guessed it) the IT. He likes Star Trek. He’s good at Math. He’s exactly the same character as Raj from The Big Bang Theory, but with fewer lines.
Now, if you’re thinking “But Jay, it’s not supposed to be Chekov. What’s wrong with a bit of light-hearted chuckle-driven entertainment on a soggy winter evening?” then this is for you. And you’re right, of course; there is nothing wrong with those things. But this is a box-set, and by the third hour I felt like I was being poked in the face with Nuts magazine and a Grisham novel.
Still, having said all that, the two guys are engaging enough for the show to avoid being actually offensive (unless you’re a woman, or Asian, and I am, alas, neither). It zips along at a decent pace, it doesn’t take itself too seriously and, I must admit, I did audibly guffaw once or twice.
So, if unpretentious, glossy comedy is your thing, and you can suspend disbelief like the OJ jury, then this might be right up your Ally McBeal. Me? I’m off to scour Chekov for chuckles.
Jay Freeman
