TV Reviews : Verdict on ‘Equal Justice’: New Series Seems Destined to Join TV’s Law Program Elite

Just as no one knows why birds fly, no one knows why some television series take off and others stay grounded. If energy, texture, style, production quality and excellent writing, directing and acting are the prerequisites, however, then ABC’s new “Equal Justice” will soar.

Premiering at 9 tonight on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42, and returning in its regular time slot at 10 on Wednesdays, “Equal Justice” is “L.A. Law” with a blue collar, affirming that being derivative is no sin when accompanied by superb execution.

One of the best series pilots in years, tonight’s two-hour story, along with Wednesday’s regular-season opener, immediately qualify “Equal Justice” as being among the elite of TV’s long line of law series.

The main protagonists are prosecutors in the district attorney’s office, an eclectic group of lawyers whose interesting personalities and overlapping cases become the fabric of each episode.

Tonight, the office’s star performer, Michael James (Joe Morton), clashes with his boss, Eugene Rogan (Cotter Smith), and an opportunistic black leader (Eugene Clark) while prosecuting four white cops accused of fatally beating a black man. In one especially memorable sequence, beautifully directed by executive producer Thomas Carter, James is shown rehearsing his summation at night and again in the morning as blacks sing spirituals outside the courthouse.

Meanwhile, relentlessly ambitious, corner-cutting Christopher Searls (James Wilder)--a younger version of Arnie Becker on “L.A. Law”--is himself a party to breaking the law in getting a drug addict in shape to testify; veteran prosecutor Linda Bauer (Jane Kaczmarek) soothes her terrified client in a rape case, and recent law school grad JoAnn Harris (Sarah Jessica Parker) tries to gather the courage to stand up to a tyrannical judge.

Carter provides pace and co-executive producer Christopher Knopf a fine script that bristles with good dialogue. Bauer, laying it on the line to Rogan about his fast-lane political agenda: “You were a good lawyer. You were charming. I always liked you. But you were always in the next room before you got there.”

“Equal Justice” also appears bent on depicting unequal justice: The courts are shown as a sort of assembly line that often serves the public in spite of the system, not because of it. In this scenario, the poorest litigants too often are dehumanized and reduced to being anonymous files.

Led by Morton, who is given the most to do in the first two episodes, the performances are outstanding across the board, and there’s a great smoky texture here that provides lots of character.

What a fine start. Intelligence ripples through “Equal Justice,” a series in the next room before it gets there.