It’s not surprising that Franklin & Bash was originally developed for TBS instead of TNT. Thinking back to the network slogans at the time, F&B doesn’t really fit under “We Know Drama,” but then again, it doesn’t fall under the umbrella of “Very Funny” either. The show is still frustratingly complacent with being a glossed up Perry Mason-esque legal procedural where every case gets solved in a courtroom, in the last five minutes, with a key witness buckling under cross-examination thanks to the guile of our intrepid heroes, Jared Franklin and Peter Bash. Everything is designed for the most twist-heavy setup, contrived so that around every predictable cutback, no matter how far on the ropes Franklin and Bash get, they can always come up with an elaborate ploy to save the case and make it look like they exerted no effort. After all, this is the show that cast Tommy Chong as a judge with a strict, no-nonsense policy on marijuana possession.
Right from the theme song, which sounds like Pearl Jam got eaten and then regurgitated by Nickelback, it’s clear that Franklin & Bash is stuck in some kind of frat-boy time warp. The titular duo is on the verge of cementing their place in the big time and becoming partners, so long as they land a big corporate client and prove they can bring business in for the firm. But they still get to pull off their trademark hijinks, like locking Franklin in a water tank in a Houdini-like fashion to get a manufacturer to admit his products are made in China, or putting on a gladiator costume and greasing up with sunscreen in order to prove that a defendant didn’t resist arrest. The cleverness is turned all the way to 11, with Meyer and Gosselaar doing everything but turning right to the camera and giving an exaggerated wink.
And the misogyny, oh the misogyny. Not an episode can go by without having Gosselaar turn on the smolder and demean some unassuming female character. Sometimes, it’s his ex-girlfriend Janie, played by Claire Coffee—now better known to me as Adalind Schade on Grimm—but other times, he’s seducing a female police officer by telling her she’s “too sexy to be a cop.” The peripheral characters, from the villainous partners Damien and Hanna, scheming to oust Franklin and Bash from the firm, to the research endeavors of Pindar and Carmen, only get as much screen time as the writers can find quips.
Malcolm McDowell keeps riding his career resurgence, getting a few moments each week to tell a story about his sexual past, which makes everyone else uncomfortable. He’s a leery combination of Betty White and Pierce on Community when he tells his Eartha Kitt stories, eliciting a few laughs but a far better character when he’s overseeing a case using his wit on cross examination. I used to like him as a truly villainous foil to Jeremy Piven on Entourage—just about the only thing that made sticking with that show possible—but after another, darker role on Heroes, he’s settled into the same laidback tone as his guest appearance on Psych this past season, genteel with a bite.