The Paper Chase: Season Two

The Second Year: Love vs. Law
Several years after its initial run on CBS, THE PAPER CHASE was revived on the Showtime cable channel. John Houseman returned in the role of Professor Kingsfield, along with James Stephens as Hart, Tom Fitzsimmons as Ford and James Keane as Bell. The characters of Logan and Anderson disappeared and were replaced by an assortment of new faces, most notably Jane Kaczmarek as Hart's girlfriend.
Those who never saw the episodes produced for Showtime in the early 80's are probably wondering how they compare to the first-year CBS segments. Actually the producers did an excellent job of continuing the series in the same spirit while making logical changes to mirror the progress of the students as they advanced through law school. The biggest surprise (or disappointment) about the episodes produced for cable is that while they were quite well done, the stories weren't significantly more dramatic or insightful than those done for CBS. One would have thought that the writers, freed...

Quality Television
In England the first 8 episodes of this, the second season, were shown on the BBC in the '80s, the remaining 11 episodes being relegated to an afternoon timeslot, which was a shame because the episodes - many of which were written by John Jay Osborne Jr, the creator of the original source novel - were great television. It was later shown on Satellite channel Sky 1, but edited in order to fit ads in. Another shame.

I only hope that if seasons 3 and 4 are released by Shout Factory (soon, please!) they will be in a combined 2-season box, because season 3 consisted of only 12 episodes and season 4 only 6. There are 19 season 2 episodes here, however.

This show really is something special. I've been quoting it as my all-time favourite series for years... but so few people seem to remember it outside of the US.

At a time when the World saw most '80s American TV as "chewing gum for the eyes" this proved that quality was possible.

Part II
Imo, (Disk 1) of the 2nd season lacked all the sparkle of Season 1. I was disappointed to find that since the 1L's Study Group never finished their first season, nor said goodbye, there was no ending. Season 2 just began with three former students from 1L already moved into 2L's. At least 2 members of the study group, Logan and Anderson were permanently gone, no goodbyes, and were never spoken of again which was a big disappointment to me, and rather curious. Hart and Ford moved into an apartment, Bell was still living in the dorm as an organizer for the new 1L students. (The last student you would think of.) But he has matured some what and his part was interesting.

Hart has a girlfriend, whom I've seen before. She struck me as a Soap Opera character, (in fact the whole story line between Hart and Connie was like a Soap Opera) but Hart fell in love with her. She was having problems with Contracts and tried to borrow Hart's outlines. He loaned them to her, but after...

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