OOH, LA LAW

ROSE:

"Every Sunday I watch 'la Law'."

DOROTHY:
"That's 'L.A. Law'!"
(Later)
SOPHIA:

"Very nice 'counselor'!

Just exactly how close are you to the TV when you're watching 'la Law'?"

'The Golden Girls'

With this example of a Zonk, there's no mention of the MacKenzie-Brackman law firm. So it could be that 'L.A. Law' in Toobworld was the generic title for a reality show, along the same lines as 'L.A. Ink'... only about lawyers.

That reality show could still have been about MacKenzie-Brackman, especially since some of the kids left their zip code comfort zone of 'Beverly Hills 90210' and drove by the office building where the law firm was located - and one of them mentioned that he didn't watch the show.

Three of the actors who starred in 'L.A. Law' in the Trueniverse were mentioned in connection to the show - Harry Hamlin (on 'Six Feet Under'), Jimmy Smits (on 'Married... With Children'), and Corbin Bernsen (in episodes of 'Just Shoot Me', 'Seinfeld', and 'Matlock'). But here's a possible splainin: they all appeared as themselves on the reality show called 'L.A. Law', with the law firm handling cases for them.

Another mention of interest - in 'Psych', Henry Spenser was a likely candidate to be the identical cousin of Arnold Becker. And back in 1989, Henry thought the show would be a passing fad (despite the involvement of his cousin.) With all of these mentions - even into the new millennium! -  if it is a reality show in Toobworld, it proved to have legs.

Finally, Alan Rachins appeared in an episode of 'Eli Stone' in which he was credited as a "Familiar Lawyer". Longtime visitors to Toobworld know that I don't put much stock in credits, but I think it would be safe to assume that he was actually Douglas Brackman.

But here's the thing - representing Eli at his disbarment hearing, this "familiar lawyer" was working for a law firm called McKinley-Breckman, not MacKenzie-Brackman.

It's a bit intricate, and built on sand, but here's how it might work.....

'L.A. Law' went off the air in 1994, but its last appearance in Toobworld was in 2002 with the reunion TV movie. So in that six year span, until Rachins showed up in that 'Eli Stone' episode, anything could have happened to Douglas Brackman.

It could be that he finally committed an act of sexual deviance so heinous that the partners of the firm had no choice but to convene and drum him out of the firm with a vote. Desperate to still trade on the firm's name to build up business for himself, Douglas could have incorporated himself as a law firm with fictional partners named McKinley and Breckman. (We've seen that happen before in Toobworld - 'Eisenhower & Lutz'.)

Douglas may have wanted to make the potential client think he was still affiliated with McKenzie-Brackman, hoping they weren't too familiar with the original firm's name. Eli Stone would have known the difference, but it wouldn't have mattered. He wanted the best lawyer for the situation, and probably no one knew the intricacies of office politics in a law firm better than Douglas Brackman.

Anyhoo, it's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble.....

BCnU!