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Raising the Bar
SERIES: TNT, Monday 10:00p (60 minutes)


4.8

based on 23 reviews
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how did we calculate this?

based on 22 votes
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Get more information on this show at TV.com.

Official Show Site

Starring Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Gloria Reuben, Currie Graham, Melissa Sagemiller, J. August Richards, Jonathan Scarfe, Teddy Sears, Jane Kaczmarek, and Natalia Cigliuti

Bochco returns with a new legal drama set in the criminal justice system.

GENRE(S):	Drama
CREATED BY:	Steven Bochco David Feige
FIRST AIR DATE:	September 1, 2008

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Newsday Verne Gay

Good show with fine cast, but it all still feels a little too familiar and old-fashioned.

LA Weekly Robert Abele

The series seems to always eschew Hollywood-style courtroom theatrics and gotcha moments for resolutions that seem truer because they involve mistakes, bad timing, compromises, dubious ethics and sweated-out smarts.

USA Today Robert Bianco

Bar is so slow to start, it might as well be in reverse. The first episode is, simply, flat-out terrible. Which is why, if you're a Bochco fan, you'd be wise to wait for the fourth episode, when Bar moves to mediocre.

New York Daily News David Hinckley

Bochco delivers instead a solid lawyer show that fits comfortably into the mold formed by dozens of lawyer shows before it.

Miami Herald Glenn Garvin

What it isn't is very dramatic. If watching attorneys haggle like rug traders was all that interesting, Feige probably would still be doing it. Nonetheless, there are worse ways to spend an hour than watching Raising the Bar, especially since the cast members are all quite pretty.

Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Armstrong

Charge this one with trying too hard.

Hollywood Reporter Barry Garron

Too often, though, plots are contrived and coincidental (how many times can Kellerman defend clients against the same prosecutor, who just happens to be his girlfriend?) and lack the wonderful surprises that are trademarks of a Bochco production.

Wall Street Journal Nancy DeWolf Smith

Despite its updated gloss and cast, in fact, Raising the Bar doesn't really break a mold.

Washington Post Tom Shales

Seriously, it is hard to take the show very seriously. It does traffic in issues and hot topics--and protests, in its way, the general corruption of the legal system--but not in particularly fresh or original terms.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Rob Owen

Bar still feels like an attempt at a '90s-era edgy prime-time drama whose time has past.

PopMatters Cynthia Fuchs

While the particulars of these cases are not uninteresting, they are mostly lost amid the swirl of Jerry and Michelle’s careening between romance and competition, betrayal and “crossing the line.”

New York Magazine John Leonard

Raising the Bar is professional television, but no more than that. Passion and purpose are among the missing.

Los Angeles Times Robert Lloyd

It's not all bad, but nothing in it argues that it needed to be made other than to give the people who made it something to do. It's a mediocre misfire in which the odd good parts beg for a better home.

San Francisco Chronicle Tim Goodman

Although the cases in Raising the Bar are apparently influenced by real-life cases, they tend to be either predictable or predictably unpredictable, however you want to look at it. In combination with the characters, this makes Raising the Bar about an average law series. That's pretty good for TNT, but less than expected from Bochco - fair or not.

Philadelphia Inquirer David Hiltbrand

All the characters appear to have emerged from the stockroom.

Philadelphia Daily News Ellen Gray

So why would TNT settle for warmed-over Bochco? Because that's what they're getting.

The New York Times Ginia Bellafante

Part of what makes Raising the Bar so loopy is its commitment to this peculiar politics of personal responsibility and to a sappy liberalism that means none of the accused represented by Jerry Kellerman (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) and his compatriots in the public defender’s office are ever all that bad. They are just mentally ill, or poor and struggling, or innocent.

Variety Brian Lowry

There's no escaping a nagging sense that the series springs from a well-worn playbook.

New York Post Linda Stasi

The second episode is 30 percent better than the first. Maybe by episode six, it will actually be watchable.

Boston Globe Matthew Gilbert

These are some of the most lackluster, unimaginative trials brought to TV in years, as every defendant's guilt or innocence is written all over his or her face from the get-go.

Chicago Tribune Maureen Ryan

Bochco has made the most cutting-edge drama--of 1994. These thinly drawn characters aren't compelling, and the entire production feels dated and stagey.

Newark Star-Ledger Alan Sepinwall

It's not just familiar, but lazy.

TV Guide Matt Roush

This shockingly ordinary new legal drama from Steven Bochco should seem right at home amid TNT’s ubiquitous Law & Order reruns. It feels like something you’ve seen before, maybe from way back when L&O; was new.

The average user rating for this tv show is 4.8 (out of 10) based on 22 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Rick S. gave it a10:
I love this show! it's picked up speed now, and puts a fair bit of action into each episode. Jane Kacz is wonderful: she's found her perfect role.

Matt D. gave it a10:
It is refreshing to see the courtroom and the justice system portrayed for it is actually like in real life. I am a public defender and for once a tv show actually tells the story of what it is like from a perspective other than the cops and the DA. I identify with the characters in this story and when people ask me why I do my job or how can I defend these people I tell them to watch this show because this is the closest it gets. Some of it is over the top but there are judges like that and Da's that play fast and loose with the rules. For those who hate the show, either they are law enforcement or have never been on the inside looking out in a courtroom. Thanks Bochco for looking at the system from all sides and not the law and order side that the public has been spoon fed forever!

John B. gave it a0:
Where do I begin? The writing is terrible, the casting is bad, the characters aren't believable, the story line is comical, the acting is worse, and the premise that all these characters from different segments of the justice system meet together after work for drinks and relationships is ludicrous. Much less than I had expected from Bochko. In my humble opinion, completely unwatchable.

Patrick M. gave it a10:
Awesome show.. awesome cast....another winner from Bochco!!!

Erin J. gave it a2:
Real crap. Fantasy fulfillment for some seriously inadequate former public defender. But apparently renewed for another season by TNT. Incredible.

DP A gave it a9:
just saw yesterday's episode--i thought it was good. it didn't seem ponderous or clumsy last night--i thought the story lines integrated nicely, and while the actors ham it up a bit, and the sexual tension can be a bit cheesy, it was still an entertaining watch. it obviously skews defense-friendly, but the world of tv justice shows needs that. (law and order's intro says there's only two parts to the justice system--cops & prosecutors.) it was nice to have defendants who aren't one-dimensional.

Bernardo S. gave it a9:
good cast and nice story so far, although i hope it gets more exciting and new stuff under the risk of getting just another boring series.

Raising the Bar SERIES: TNT, Monday 10:00p (60 minutes)

Raising the Bar
SERIES: TNT, Monday 10:00p (60 minutes)