TV: Street Legal clunky but getting better

By FRANCES GRANT

Halfway through its 13-week run, local legal-beagle drama Street Legal is beginning to grow into its highly cultivated big-city looks.

Last night's episode, The Boxer (TV2, 8.30), while still hampered by some of the flaws of the show's start - stagey speeches, too obvious connections knitting up the plot, and overacting - at least managed a better balance of business and pleasure.

The case of the Tongan overstayer, a gifted amateur boxer and artist revelling in the creative freedom of New Zealand, was complex enough to sustain interest throughout.

It also had the benefit of being an undoubtedly Kiwi story, proving that there's local mileage to be had out of a metropolitan lawyering show - a genre many might call tired.

Last week's episode at last gave lead Jay Laga'aia something to get his teeth into and succeeded in upping the intensity levels in a series which seemed dedicated solely to delivering telly-lawyering-lite.

In the show's first few instalments, the real business took a backseat to establishing the maverick credentials of his character, David Silesi, and all the diversions - such as the stealing of his beloved pick-up - slackened the tension of the storylines.

It's fortunate Silesi has hit his stride, because it's hard to see the point of his colleague and partner in the firm, Joni (Katherine Kennard), unless it's just to add sex-in-the-city. Kennard does her best to play a feisty woman lawyer but her casework seems confined pretty much to the bedroom and the gym.

The show made a mistake, too, in starting out with a break-up between Silesi and Joni, too soon for viewers to know and care about the characters.

While Laga'aia is proving he's more than up to playing a boundary-pushing charmer, and can pull off the genre's requisite bravura closing address, he is backed by some strong performances.

Louise Wallace's turn as Chief Justice provides a persuasive argument that she was wasted in current affairs. She manages to get away with improbable lines like: "Don't get existential on me. I'm rooted." And the show's main policeman is convincingly played by Charles Mesure.

Some of the running story arcs have been limited. The Wyeth family dynamics are tedious and the spoiled boss' daughter Melanie and rookie lawyer Tim are uninspired. But they are tolerable compared to the ham actor of the piece, Cal Wilson, as the firm's bimbo receptionist.

Despite such clunkiness, Street Legal has promise. Here is a drama telling stories which undeniably reflect the contemporary cross-cultural mix of New Zealand's largest city.