Boston Legal - Season 5 (DVD, 2009, 4-Disc Set; Checkpoint; Sensormatic; Widescreen)

The 5th season and the 4th season of Boston Legal were entertaining on the first viewing. The second viewing of each season lowered my overall rating of the series. David Kelley has a habit of making excellent shows for the first 2 or 3 seasons. It is during the remaining seasons that he gets sideways and loses focus. The writing also declines and the series becomes more about political campaigning and leftist points of view as "mainstream thought".
William Shatner and James Spader carry the show with help from John Larroquette during season 4 and 5. The plots from show to show have moments of excellent humor just good enough to retain viewer interest.
I recommend that any dialogue delivered in the court room scenes by James Spader about government surverys (results) and statements about US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas be disregarded as total lies or fact checked. It would be more correct to view the writing for this show as laced with racial bigotry couched in the dislike of conservatives and the religious right. I find David E. Kelley supportive of irrational generalizations about things which are routinely mischaracterizations of the opposition point of view in anything he does not believe in. Candace Bergen happily seems to be along for the ride as she plays an older and way-past-her-prime attorney to buttress the mediocre writing for this painful last season. I liked the first three seasons but tolerated the arrogance of the writers of this show as they quite naturally coopted the actors to make blanket lies about anything in the news as factual... and so long as it was not reported on Fox News. The point of this show being funny often missed because good humor is based in truth FIRST. From truth we take the viewer and corrupt the news to be funny in some light which gives credibility to our laughter. David E. Kelley settles for being a pathetic liar through his wriiting staff while making things up that could never stand up to any fact checking. Making light of Justice Clarence Thomas at any level was simple and basic racial bigotry worthy of prime time viewing because the censors allow it. And why not? There are no naked body parts being bared...just angry vicious lies about a good and decent man who happens to be an African American man on the US Supreme Court.
Thankfully we did not have to put up with Clarence, the cross-dressing, African American attorney this last season. Taking a decent actor and making him into a cross-dressing heterosexual man took away from his actual talents as an actor playing an attorney. Never mind the all-to-obvious point that this is how Hollywood seeks to dress up their own racial bias and put it on display while all the time saying, "We give jobs to black people". It is just racially arrogant to think that Clarence could ever have his character taken seriously at the hand of this writing staff. So very funny, hahahaha David E. Kelley.
I would add that making light of William Shatner for his sexual dysfunctionality got old 3 seasons ago. Very old!! Hence the criticism of the decline of writing quality and loss of focus for this tired series.
The disturbing and very phony US Supreme Court scenes were another example of the way this series got sideways and lost focus while placing the racial hatred of the entire cast of writers on display. David E. Kelley deserves a special place in hell for allowing this series to be aired.