Case Dismissed

Another fall 2010 TV series I’m sorry to see cancelled: The Defenders, starring James Belushi and Jerry O’Connell as high-living Las Vegas defense attorneys with some ... well, let’s call them unorthodox methods of winning justice for their clients.

Sure, it had its flaws, the first of which was a title that suggested The Defenders was a rebooting of the famous 1960s legal drama starring E.G. Marshall. But this new series also had many strengths--especially in likable star Belushi, but also in O’Connell, playing his slicker partner, and the fetching Jurnee Smollett-Bell as their more serious, younger associate (who put herself through law school as a stripper).

CBS ought not to have let The Defenders put up a longer defense.