The jury finds the defendant...

...NOT GUILTY!

Okay, that's a cheesy way to enter, but hey, I just saw Justice, the newest courtroom drama on television, and I have to say, I was/am VERY IMPRESSED! Tonight's premiere episode was about a young working-class collegiala from Nebraska who goes to college in LA. She has stabbed to death a rich old man widely known as a successful (if ill-tempered) mogul in the music industry. The young woman admits to killing him, but she claims it was self-defense on her part. But as the case went on, her testimony grows increasingly dubious, leading even her self-assured lawyers to doubt its veracity. For instance, it becomes apparent that she had been dating rich old men for money and glamour. Could it be that she deliberately killed him for money? To make matters worse, media scrutiny over the case is getting more and more intense by the minute, since it involves a famed music mogul. Can the team of TNT&G lawyers win the case for the college gal? And what's the truth behind the stabbing incident?


You know what I probably like best about the show? That it focuses on the media scrutiny of high profile cases, and the lengths to which lawyers, reporters, spin doctors, etc. are willing to go to project a certain image and/or version of a story to the public (that, and to gratify their own respective over-inflated egos). That's right, it focuses on how, even on cases involving a crime as heinous as murder, truth can be manufactured by fashioning a certain image and story version. (It is only after the verdict has been given that it shows the viewers what really happened; i.e., whether the client was really guilty or not, and/or whether s/he told the whole truth in the courtroom.) Sort of a subtle jab at how the truth gets buried in spectacle and ego wars. (Says one of the law firm's image consultants: My job is to make her [the client] look innocent and likeable to the jury. It's not my job to make her tell the truth!)


If you have a critical or philosophical bent, you could even explore the TV show's premise and pose questions concerning its implications to a culture/society that's perhaps oversaturated with manufactured images. What happens when such images take precedence over "truth"? What would be the consequences to our culture, history, knowledge, existence?


Truths, lies, spin, image, evidence, egos, media, bastards, bitches, spectacle... Justice gives viewers a glamourized peek into the dirty interconnected worlds of media, politics and law. Hmm, right up my alley, baby! =)


If the premiere episode is any indication, I think I'm going to love this new TV show!


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Images:
* Main Cast of FOX's Justice
* "Scales of Justice" -- source