bahmani

Last weekend I got to watch one of my favorite-est Iranian actresses, Sarah Shahi make her way back to TV when my last favorite show with her in it, the quirky cop drama "Life" lived a wholly unfair short life. "Life's" death had me wondering if the many rumors about Hollywood were in fact true. I have no idea what those rumors are, but who cares? Shahi is back! With a hot new show that is very very good, as of the first episode.

The name of the show which is yet another gem polished by the USA Cable Network, is "Fairly Legal", and Shahi plays a jaded lawyer who disillusioned by the legal system, comes back to her father's law firm as a mediator. Mediators have somewhat greater free reign with which to actually get the parties, involved in disputes, to settle them, to mutual satisfaction and avoid the costly and in many cases more damaging, destructive, and emotional experience of an outright court case. You can now see where the plot goes from here.

Shahi or Kate Reed, returns to her father's law firm after he has died, to find her young (and hot) step mother played by Virgina Williams, who is trying to fill her husband's role in the firm, and you can hopefully also now see where the sub-plot goes from here.

So, in your standard character TV drama, what else might one need? Well you've either got to go with the comedic 3rd wheel which in this case is delivered like a perfectly hot thin crust pizza by Baron Vaughn who plays Kate's king of the nerds assistant Leonardo Price, who uses his Wiley WarCraft Ways to track down hackable info for Kate to use in her cases.

Or you could add a 4th element to the mix, namely Fire, and include Kate's sexy second guessing the divorce, ex-husband District Attorney Justin Patrick, played by Michael Trucco.

If none of these twists your nipples, then you can just sit and wait patiently for the inevitable money shot, namely Shahi's impossibly high angle Manolo Blahniks, that go all the way. Watching Shahi actually run across polished hardwood floors, or dodge street traffic in them, is sheer terror that you simply can't CG.

So what else do you need for a hit show? How about a cool locale? Sure Montreal deserves to have a TV presence, but given that it's Canada, it ain't gonna happen on American TV. Places like Albuquerque, Boston, and Chicago come to a cliche'd mind, but what makes Fairly Legal's choice especially endearing is that it happens to be on my own backyard, namely San Francisco.

One last thing about the likelihood that this time Shahi and Fairly Legal will last, is it's position in the USA lineup. One of the hottest shows aside from "Burn Notice", is "Royal Pains", and thankfully Shahi's show comes on after that, making it a very watchable Thursday night indeed.

To learn more about Sarah Shahi: Click Here