Boston Legal: Alan Shore & Danny Crane fighting to do the right thing

Boston Legal is the latest TV series which captured my attention, perhaps with some wittiness like Ally McBeal. But Ally had too much whining, yet still intriguing at times with the help of Richard (Dick) Fish and Ling. Anyway, Boston Legal is witty, yet it had depth and brought up some of the most interesting topics, and nevertheless entertaining and fun to watch (ignore the plain looking program logo, it's a deception to stop you from getting the best: seek and you shall find).

Let’s do some introduction before I dwell to deep, for those who don’t know what Boston Legal is all about. First, we have Alan Shore, a witty lawyer who can do the most outrages things at times and yet be logical, but he had the thing to uphold the truth (or at least, his conscience). He is confident, smart, fun and could be rude and too straightforward a time (which turn out to make things quite interesting). Then we have the legendary Denny Crane, who seems like a successful and skillful old man who looks only at money at this stage of his life. Yet at times, under the provocation of Alan Shore, he might get back to become his old self, in a stealthy way of course (he got a reputation to uphold, yet he got his responsibilities to his law firm to make a profit).

There is this episode where a drug company is sued by one of their lab test volunteer, who claims she is wrongly discharged from the test. But the truth is, the drug company had done something wrong, and they wanted to cover it up by retracting those tests. The main scientist told Alan Shore about the truth, and Alan encourage her to blow the whistle (tell the truth; betray her company who had done something wrong). Denny Crane on the other side discourages her, as the drug company is a big client and he want do buy a fishing plot with the money earned. So, Denny and Alan had a gentleman arguement.

On the day of trial, Alan put knife in Danny’s pocket and picture of Saddam Hussein in his brief case to stop him from attending the case (Denny was stopped at the security entrance), and that Alan could questioned the witness and lead her to tell the truth. As a counter measure, Denny pull the fire alarm to stop the trial. Both of them were fined 50,000 for their childish act by the court. Denny get to question the witness instead of Alan. But Alan kinda mentioned something about conscience, and what a real Denny Crane should have done. Everything was going smoothly as planned, until the last moment, Denny repeat the same question to the witness, asking her to repeat her stand in a truthful manner, for God, for Truth, for herself, for Denny and for Alan. At last she told the truth, and Denny acted surprise as if he had no idea of such surprises (an act to save his butt, yet keep the conscience intact).

At the end, Danny and Alan sit down at the balcony, with cigars in their ears, wondering about how good it had been to do the right thing, and sometimes it might not be easy to do it. “We looks good together”, is what they said.

Sometimes, of all the things we do in life and work, could we actually keep our conscience intact and do the right thing? Or are we a mindless drone who works for profit and follow orders? Between a million dollar and doing the right thing, which one would you choose? Such as in life, although we are working for money all the times, perhaps there are just something more than money. I don’t believe we are here by chance to accumulate physical wealth, perhaps it is just how we choose to journey through our life. I believe God did give us something, freewill. We are the once who choose to excercise freewill or not (talking about our responsibilities, obligations, ethics, interests, etc)