The Paper Chase: Season One
by Ralph Senensky
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DVD details
Actor: James Keane, James Stephens, John Houseman, Tom FitzsimmonsDirector: Ralph Senensky
Brand: Universal Studios
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown)
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 1080 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-04-07
Audience Rating: G (General Audience)
Studio: Shout Factory
DVD Reviews of The Paper Chase: Season One
DVD Review: It really was "too good for commercial television"
Summary: 5 Stars
The Paper Chase ran for 3.5 seasons, one on CBS, and 2.5 (the final season being a short one) on the then-young cable network Showtime. This is the inaugural season from CBS. When Showtime picked it up, they advertised it as the show that was "too good for commercial television", and they were right.
This was the era when cheesy sitcoms dominated the airwaves. Dramas were cop shows like Starsky and Hutch and Columbo, "detective" series Charlie's Angels, schmaltzy family series like The Waltons, general idiocy like The Love Boat, and the beginning of the prime-time soap era with Dallas. Some of those had their merits, but the Paper Chase was an oasis in television's "vast wasteland".
The first season is the story of five first year law students at an unnamed law school that was pretty clearly supposed to be Hah-vahd... errrr.... Harvard Law, focusing on the idealistic James Hart, played by James Stephens.
The real star of the show, though, was John Houseman, absolutely brilliant as the intimidating contracts professor, and general deity of The Law (capitalization intentional -- I am certain you can hear the capitals when he says it) Charles W. Kingsfield.
The stories are all compelling, the characters well-written and likable. Even Kingsfield is given a human side, albeit one he rarely if ever displays to his students.
Now, there is a very definite "seventies" feel to the whole thing. The clothing and hairstyles obviously are from that era. A number of the episodes have "very special episode" written all over them, but even then, they're well done.
Since this was from the era when the idea of storylines spanning multiple episodes was pretty much unknown, there's a lack of continuity that will seem a little odd to fans of modern television. For instance, one character develops a gambling problem in one episode. Forty five or so minutes later, its resolved. It gets brief mentions in one or two later episodes, but isn't addressed further. A modern series would probably take several episodes to cover that -- he'd take up playing poker in one episode, wind a few hands in another, start losing later, get into debt even later, etc.
While Shout Factory deserves enormous kudos for releasing such a fine series on DVD, the reproduction of it is weak. They certainly don't have the sharpness expected from a DVD (especially not if you've been spoiled by Blu-Ray). I realize that the masters may not have been in the best of shape, but don't expect this to look as stunning as your Blu-Ray copies of Lost, for instance.
And then there's the ungodly painful Seals and Croft theme song that gives Seventies light rock a (very very) bad name, but that's what fast forward buttons were invented for. (Thankfully, Showtime ditched that for their episodes, replacing with a classical piece -- Bach, I think.)
DVD Review: Paper chase
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this show & was thrilled when Showtime picked it up after cancellation but it has been years since viewing. It's a bit dated but
the terror for students in law school endures the wrath of Professor Kingsfield.
If you like law or have been to law school you'll love this show. It was too intellectual for primetime television.
DVD Review: mix five diverse law student personalities, stir in one curmudgeon of a professor, simmer for four years...
Summary: 5 Stars
Recipe for life during law school: Mix five diverse personalities, stir in one curmudgeon of a law school professor, simmer for four years.
The Paper Chase, for its time, and even possibly for our time 30 years after first being broadcast, was, and remains one of the finest examples of broadcast television. That the original Professor Kingsfield, John Houseman, himself one of the most productive people in quality show business world would return to his oscar winning role, bears testimony to this. A person of his stature would not have come back to a program of lesser standards. In point of fact, one episode from this set, "a case of detente" illustrates that Houseman would not be associated with this script as it was of much less quality than some of the others.
There were several episodes culled from sub plots in the movie, but when I saw the movie, I wondered what could be made from these themes (Kingsfield's daughter, the cheating on the exam, the formation of the study group, etc.) These original plot points were examined quite well in the first year of the series. Other original plots were quite well done also. Of course Kingsfield was preachy, but what he had to say made sense even outside the milieu of the television screen. This series is a must have for any one considering further education.
If art truly imitates life, the screenwriters, directors, and actors paid educational life the highest compliment with this series.
DVD Review: Expectation for students. Or relief
Summary: 5 Stars
I've enjoyed this sit com while first being aired. I still agree how well it was made. If our collages had professors as 'Kingsley', we would have the brightest and second to none graduates across the globe. DVD Review: This show is AWFUL!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
Caveats: 1. I loved the movie version; 2. I have not seen the Showtime seasons, so this review is about the CBS season only.
I had always heard that this was as great a show as it was a movie. It was not anywhere near as good.
The best way I can describe this series is that it seems like someone took a can of drama and poured it in the mix, forgetting to pour in a can of plot and story. Let's examine the episode (probably the 5th and last one I could stand to watch) where the father or Hart's girlfriend is killed. The father is a famous mob lawyer who is under constant threats. Kingsfield treats the father as a pariah. Father gets killed, and the episode focuses on the relationship and stress between Hart and the girlfriend. So many things are just left for us to assume. And what about who killed and why was the father killed?
Imagine that I told you that a tiger ate a couple of kids at the school bus stop next to my house, then went on about how I hope my dog wasn't traumatized too much or afraid of tigers. Wouldn't you ask me if I knew where the tiger came from, or if I tried to get the dog back inside to take cover, or even if I called the police? Isn't that what's really more interesting?
In a nutshell, most of handfull of episodes I viewed were like this: Drama for drama's sake and no story.
As for those who view the series as intellectual or somehow high brow, I submit that a crowd exists that thinks anything to do with Harvard is intellectual. Those rating this highly may also be deluded by memories from not seeing this in 30 years.
Description of The Paper Chase: Season One
The Paper Chase was a one hour dramatic series premiering on CBS in 1978 that won great critical praise, garnering the Emmy for Outstanding New Series. Based on the movie and novel, rural Minnesotan James T. Hart (James Stephens) is unprepared for the life of a first year law student at an Ivy League law school. In his first class, he elicits the ire of revered and feared contracts professor Charles W. Kingsfield(played by the brilliant John Houseman reprising his Academy Award winning movie role). But Hart is committed. And smart. And so is The Paper Chase. In order to keep up with the never-ending workload, Hart joins a study group for support. Each episode explores the trials and tribulations, the successes and failures, the competition and camaraderie that each student faces.The chase is finally over for this shining example of a television series that didn't treat its viewers as if they had skulls full of mush. Based on the acclaimed 1973 film that was adapted from John Jay Osborn, Jr.'s novel, this 1978 series is literally old school. It presents education in general and the study of law in particular as noble pursuits. The students for whom we develop a rooting interest are the best and the brightest, and in Professor Charles Kingsfield we have an addition to the pantheon of great movie/TV teachers. James Stephens anchors the series as Hart, an idealistic first-year law student. In the Grade-A pilot episode, as in the film, he gets on the wrong side of the intimidating Kingsfield, his role model and inspiration, on the first day of class. How Hart gets back in his good graces sets the stage for episodes in which classroom drama proves to be just as compelling as the courtroom variety. Hart's study-group classmates include third generation lawyer Ford (Tom Fitzsimmons), genius Anderson (Robert Ginty), activist Logan (Francine Tacker), newly-married Brooks (Jonathan Sagall), and slob Bell (James Keane). The Paper Chase got the prestige treatment. James Brooks, who directed the feature film, developed the series for television, Osborn wrote several of the episodes, and the venerable John Houseman recreated his Oscar-winning role as Kingsfield, a TV first. While Kingsfield was a monolithic character in the film, he is more accessible in the series. There is much more interaction between him and the idolizing Hart. Familiar faces in Season One include Marilu Henner as a sympathetic waitress in the pilot episode, Don Porter (Gidget) as Ford's demanding father in "The Man Who Would Be King," Robert Reed as a professor who sexually harasses Logan in "Once More with Feeling," and Kim Cattrall as a struggling law student's wife in "Da Da." The Paper Chase was a critics' darling, but just as bad grades could sink Kingsfield's students, so did bad ratings result in The Paper Chase's cancellation after one year. Following reruns on PBS, the Showtime network picked up the series for three more CableAce Award-winning seasons. The Paper Chase was no doubt to aspiring lawyers what All the President's Men was to fledgling investigative reporters. Rarely syndicated, the series is just as gripping as when it first aired, its intensity and intelligence are undimmed. --Donald Liebenson
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