Short Take: The Paper Chase (TV series)

The 21st century has ostensibly provided a renaissance in television drama. The most celebrated of the current breed of TV series are defined by a greater reliance on adult themes, an effort to develop the material in a more novelistic manner, and the willingness to end a show when it has run its proper course. Ratings success no longer means a series will continue indefinitely. A significant precursor to this trend is The Paper Chase. Based on a novel by John Jay Osborn, Jr., as well as its 1973 feature-film adaptation, the show debuted in 1978. The showrunner was Robert C. Thompson. The main character was James Hart (James Stephens), a law student at an elite East Coast university. (The school is unnamed in the series, but the novel and the feature film were set at Harvard.) The show followed Hart and his schoolmates as they navigated the demands of law school. Especially notable was Hart’s dealings with Charles Kingsfield (John Houseman), a renowned contract-law professor who inspired both fear and awe in Hart and the other students. The series only lasted a season on network television, but it had attracted a devoted following. In 1983, the Showtime cable network began new episodes, with Lynn Roth taking over as showrunner. It was under Roth that the show fully came into its own. Over the next three years, it fully explored the nexus between adolescence and adulthood that defines the traditional-student experience in higher education. As the students were of graduate-school age, their behavior did not tend towards the juvenile. The elite-university setting also meant the students were quite ambitious and competitive, which gave their responses to their various challenges a compelling intensity. The writing was unfailingly intelligent, and the performances of Stephens, Houseman, and the other cast members always lived up to it. Houseman, who had won an Oscar for playing Kingsfield in the feature film, was especially memorable. Watching him, one always understood Kingsfield's ability to intimidate his students, but also the deep respect he inspired in them. Every episode of the series was something to look forward to. That said, one couldn’t help but appreciate how the show came to an end. Each of the first three seasons had corresponded to a year of the law-school curriculum. The short, six-episode final season brought the series to its natural finish: the graduation of Hart and his classmates. One hated to see the show conclude, but one knew this was being true to the material. The series is one of the finest television dramas ever produced, and perhaps the richest depiction of university life anywhere.