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Fallin Hero
How A Once Fabulous TV Show Went Wrong
 At the time of writing, the third season of The Guardian is nearly wrapped up when it is preempted for six weeks and its fate is said to be in the balance. Audience numbers have been dropping steadily from the first season to third, and to be honest, I'm not surprised. I am a determined die-hard fan and I am even one of the three Nick-Lulu shippers out there. I am writing this to determine the reasons of my ambivalent feelings regarding this news. On one hand, I will miss an antihero like Nick Fallin. On the other hand, I feel that this show has long outlived its expiry date.
Unlike most of the fans of this show, however, I do not feel that Lulu is the sole reason for the show's downfall. Yes, I'm a Shipper, but I assure you, Season Two's thoroughly butchered Lulu makes me cringe. Just think of Dana Scully on the last legs of The X-Files, factor in the moron complex ten times higher, and that's Season Two's Lulu. But I love the idea of Lulu. When Lulu was introduced in the first season, she was an idealistic, emotional foil to Nick's cynical self. But as Season Two progressed, Lulu became the worst stereotype of a career-oriented female: an emotional mess that cannot separate her personal life from her professional life. But while Nick is arguably as messed up, at least Nick is competent at his job. Lulu is inept and loses every other case she handles so that the show can milk my sympathy. She turns clingy. She's to the show what the permanently needy and neurotic Abby is to ER. It gets to the point that Lulu and Nick's relationship dominates the show, but I am bored out of my wits. Lulu is stupid, there's no escaping that. She marries Brian when she knows he is addicted to soliciting the services of prostitutes. And when her marriage goes wrong, she eeks and sobs her way right into her office, causing Alvin and Nick and everyone in her path to be sucked into her misery. She's the stereotype of a weak, overly-emotional female and I cannot abide watching Nick and Lulu bring out the worst in each other.
But in Season Three, the writing of Lulu has noticeably improved. Although I must say that I notice this change since Season Two, during Back In The Ring, where Lulu goes back to work after her accident. The writer, whom I notice is new (although I may be wrong) obviously does not understand the characters well as she gives Nick and Lulu an uncharacteristically upbeat nature, her court cases are obvious wallpaper, and the very upbeat ending feels more at home in some feel-good drama. But ah, in this episode, Lulu shines. She laughs, smiles, and actually starts to interact with people other than Alvin and Nick. She - gasps - is competent this episode. I have to sit up and say aloud to myself, this is the Lulu I want to watch. This is the Lulu that should have been. And Lulu's character dramatically improves in Season Three. She forms an unlikely friendship with Jake Straka and she is shown actually going to court instead of weeping into her Kleenex pile in the office. I love this. I actually cheer when she becomes pregnant even when I know there's probably a miscarriage written somewhere in the future, because this is a good Lulu and she will be good for Nick.
And then Nick goes and sleeps with that... that... Social Skank Worker, Suzanne. Yucks. Seriously, yucks. And not just because I'm a Shipper - a love triangle is the last overused plot device this show needs when it has already cornered itself with so many trite and contrived storylines over the this season and the last. Having Nick regress into skanky sex and drug addiction is a cop out way to finish Season Three. Nick should have made steps forward. While his downward spiral gives a few good scenes to those people wanting to watch this show only for Nick and Burton interactions (you know who you are), these are just scenes. The flow of the show is ruined. After three seasons, shouldn't Nick be stronger than this? Shouldn't this show be more original than this?
Originality has always been a problem with this show, but at least in Season One, Nick Fallin's beautifully ambiguous morality manages to not only keep this show afloat but to send it flying high. But this show has always stooped to using clichés (see Lulu, for a very obvious example). Charles Malik Whitfield's James Mooney stick out like a sore thumb - it's very obvious that like Season One's aborted Amanda, the writers have no idea what to do with him, so they make him another Angry Black Man, and an Angry Black Man that speaks and acts like how White Boys in Corporate LA imagine Angry Black Men speak and behave. It's embarrassing when you compare how realistic someone like Nick is to the caricature that is James. Losing James in Season Three, even if it's in another clichéd manner (the Angry Black Men Killing Each Other thing), is one of the wisest things producer and creator David Hollander has ever done. Then there's Alvin, reduced into a dirty old man buttmonkey in Season Three. While Lulu and Jake and Burton only become better written, Alvin rots, forgotten, neglected, or inserted into an episode only to make Alan Rosenberg do something to earn his pay.
And then there's Shannon and Burton. Have there ever been a duller recurring plot? They are the Nick and Lulu of Season Three, only with Shannon alternating between the Needy Helpless Cute Little Girl and the Irritating Rebellious Teenaged Girl clichés to get audience to see the paternal side of Burton in a cheap cop-out way to redeem Burton's character. Burton's creepy and unrealistic relationship with that badly written Farrah Fawcett character, Shannon's grandmother Mary Gressler and spokeswoman for the Shampoo Your Hair Please campaign, is bad enough, but Burton trying to rein in that girly monster that could have fled from Full House is just plain dull and often embarrassing to watch because these two's scenes are so corny and sometimes even overly sweet. "Overly sweet" and "The Guardian" should never appear in the same sentence.
But that's how this show often is - either corny or too sweet - in its second and third season. The reason why I cannot view Nick's downward spiral as anything but a contrivance is because the writers have been doing badly patched "goodification" of Nick over the last two seasons. Look, Nick helps a teenaged conman while doing community service, awww! Nick becomes a guardian to some sick kids one more time (anyone keeping count on how many times they reuse this plot device in the last two seasons alone?), isn't he sweet! Look, Simon Baker is looking downwards and rubbing the back of his neck - Nick Fallin is sad, everybody, let's say "Awww!" Look, I love Nick Fallin as much as I can, but Nick Fallin, like everyone else in the Pitsburgh Legal Services and Fallin & Fallin, has been dumbed down and stripped off of any moral complexity in its second and third season. Season Two is a messy soap opera filled with uninspired clichés. Season Three is often too preachy, with the writers hammering the Moral Anvil of the Day into the audience five minutes into an episode. The three seasons of this show do not feel like they belong to a single, cohesive TV series.
Maybe that is the biggest reason why this show is floundering today. Season One is very good, but I can't help feeling that Hollander and Company have no idea what to do with the show anymore after that gripping finale. They try to write a gripping drama concentrating on the characters' internal conflicts for Season Two, but the result is a fiasco populated by too many Nurse Abby types running around whining and wailing. Dull and painful - no wonder people stop watching. Then in Season Three, they try to return to their roots, only this time someone has the smart idea of dumbing down all semblance of complicated moral and ethic issues for some straightforward mediocre LA Law wannabe episodes. And whoever thought of that love triangle crap must be drummed out of town at once. I hate love triangles that take place for no valid reason and trust me, I think really less of Nick now than during his lowest moments in Season Two. Why? This is because the writing of his character is one of the worst and most inconsistent in Season Three - and he's supposed to the anchor of this show!
Once, this show makes me think, and I'm not just talking about visions of me drowning in Simon Baker's bedroom eyes. Now, I tend to tune out most of this show and focus on pleasant visions of me drowning in said bedroom eyes instead. And to be honest, I don't think this show has any more story to tell. They can only make Nick Fallin a screw-up for so long before he comes off as a pathetic loser. Hollander, scrap the next few episodes. Instead, make Nick go into rehab and come out a sober man again, make him keep a tentative relationship with Lulu (but with some promising chance at going at it again in the future), and make him start his own law firm away from Burton. Nick needs to grow in directions this show fails to go to. Hollander and Company recycles the same old schtick where Nick is concerned, and this wonderful character suffers greatly as a result.
I love Nick. I think he's one of the best TV characters ever and I want to have good memories of him. After Fox Mulder crashed and burned thanks to Chris Carter's plunge into dementia and Spike is totally murdered by Joss Whedon, I have learned my lesson and told myself that I will stop watching this show. Heck, I already regret watching that episode where Nick and that woman... ugh. Hanging on to shows like Buffy and The X-Files that have jumped the shark is like being in a relationship that has soured beyond putrid point just because I cannot let go of the memories of the good times. So with this rant, I am done with this show.
Goodbye Nick. Goodbye, Lulu, Alvin, Barbara, Laurie, Judge Damsen, Jake, and Burton. The memories, when they are good, are ones I will always cherish as good times on TV Land. It has been really wonderful, I love you guys, but it's time to move on. And I can only hope that Hollander and Company will allow Nick to do the same.
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