Rake Is About A Lawyer, Not A Gardener

What Is This Thing?

Greg Kinnear plays Keegan "Kee" Deane, a Los Angeles lawyer with a lot of problems. He owes a mid-five-figures debt to a bookie; his last client paid his bill in tuna (literally); he's trying to have a relationship, sort of, with a prostitute he still pays, though he seems like he might also be in love with his ex-wife and his best friend's wife; and after taking on a serial-killer client (who's already in prison and therefore can't pay) so that Kee can reap the invaluable free publicity of representing him for the few minutes the guy pleads guilty, the guy changes his plea. See? Problems.

When Is It On?

Thursdays at 9 PM ET on Fox.

Why Was It Made Now?

Fox having lost House, its last hour-long built around a dude who's good at his job but rubs everyone around him the wrong way, back in 2012, executives apparently figured enough time had passed that viewers were ready to love to hate again.

What's Its Pedigree?

Rake is a remake of an Australian series (starring Moulin Rouge's Richard Roxburgh! The series premiere starred Hugo Weaving!) which you may have seen when it aired on DirecTV's Audience Network. In this country, it's executive-produced by Peter "Rescue Me" Tolan; Sam Raimi directed the pilot, and its writing staff features former Bob's Burgers producer Kit Boss. And, of course, there's Kinnear, headlining a series for the first time since he hosted Talk Soup.

...And?

Peter Stormare plays the serial killer in the series premiere (at least, in the version of the episode that Fox made available in advance; he's not on the official cast on IMDb, so it's possible he got recast, though...I doubt it?), and he's reliably great. Kee is also joined in his work by Leanne, his enjoyably brisk British assistant.

...But?

Well, the premise of the series is that Kee doesn't know how to run his personal life, so the pilot has to hammer on that in a way that can make it feel slightly oppressive to watch. Without spoiling anything, there are calamities related to his gambling addiction, his current straitened financial situation, his inability to read posted parking restrictions, his carelessness with regard to his personal ID, his chronic lateness...like, I could go on. It's a lot. And while I'm sure the logic behind casting Kinnear in this role is so that the audience's memory of his charming performances in the past buys Kee some leeway for being kind of a shit here, you really have to like Kinnear a lot not to think his wide range of self-destructive decisions is (a) unseemly in a man his age and (b) tedious. Oh yeah: we all know that viewers are supposed to forgive characters' messy personal lives if they're good at their jobs — that's TV 101 — but the observation that breaks open the case in the pilot is kiiiiiiiind of a stretch.

...So?

Since the show has barely anything to do with anything courtroom-related, how much you like it depends entirely on how interested you are in Kee. By the end, of the premiere, I'd seen about as much of him as I needed to — but then again, I never really watched House either. If you always wished House would pass the bar and start abusing people outside hospitals, Rake was made for you.