''Bluff City Law'' is an American

legal drama A legal drama is a genre of film and television that generally focuses on narratives regarding legal practice and the justice system. The American Film Institute (AFI) defines "courtroom drama" as a genre of film in which a system of justice play ...

television series created by Dean Georgaris and Michael Aguilar that aired on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

from September 23 to November 25, 2019. In June 2020, the series was canceled after one season.

Premise

Set in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

, the series depicts a law firm led by attorney Elijah Strait (played by

Jimmy Smits Jimmy L. Smits (born July 9, 1955) is an American actor. He is best known for playing attorney Victor Sifuentes on the 1980s-1990s legal drama '' L.A. Law'', NYPD Detective Bobby Simone on the 1990s-2000s police drama ''NYPD Blue'', Matt Santos ...

) and his daughter, Sydney. The firm handles controversial civil rights cases. This is Smits' third role portraying a lawyer in an NBC network prime-time series, the previous programs being ''

L.A. Law ''L.A. Law'' is an American legal drama television series that ran for eight seasons on NBC, from September 15, 1986, to May 19, 1994. Created by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher, it centers on the partners, associates and staff of a Los ...

'' and ''

Outlaw An outlaw, in its original and legal meaning, is a person declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, all legal protection was withdrawn from the criminal, so that anyone was legally empowered to persecute or kill them ...

''.

Cast

Main

as Elijah Strait, a civil rights lawyer regarded as one of the most accomplished litigators of his generation. *

Caitlin McGee Caitlin Cole McGee (born January 9, 1988) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as attorney Sydney Strait on the legal drama ''Bluff City Law''. She is currently a regular on the ABC comedy ''Home Economics''. Career McGee h ...

as Sydney Strait, Elijah's daughter and a former corporate attorney. She returns to her father's firm despite lingering tensions stemming from her departure three years earlier. *

Barry Sloane Barry Sloane (born Barry Paul Sloan;''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005''; at ancestry.com 10 February 1981) is an English actor. He has appeared in numerous television shows, and in the BAFTA Award–winning telev ...

as Jake Reilly, a senior partner at Strait & Associates. *

Michael Luwoye Michael Luwoye (; born December 19, 1990) is an American actor of Nigerian descent, known for playing the title role in the Broadway musical ''Hamilton''. In 2022, was nominated for the Children's and Family Emmy Award for Outstanding Voice Perfor ...

as Anthony Little, a former cop and partner at Strait & Associates. He and Sydney went to law school together. * Stony Blyden as Emerson Howe, an introverted paralegal working under Elijah. The pilot episode reveals that he is Sydney's half-brother from an affair her father had, who her father has subsequently adopted. *

Jayne Atkinson Jayne Atkinson (born 18 February 1959) is a British-American actress. She is best known for the role of Karen Hayes on '' 24'', as well as her Tony Award–nominated roles in '' The Rainmaker'' and '' Enchanted April''. She has also appeared in ...

as Della Rose Bedford, a gay senior partner at Strait & Associates and Elijah's oldest friend and confidant. *

MaameYaa Boafo MaameYaa Boafo (pronounced "Mah-Mih-Yah Bwafoh") is a Pakistan-born Ghanaian actress and comedian. Biography Boafo was born in Pakistan. She is of Ashanti (Ghanaian) ethnicity. She was raised in Sudan, Ethiopia, Geneva and Kenya, but is a citiz ...

as Briana Logan, a seasoned paralegal and investigator who mentors Emerson. * Josh Kelly as Robbie Ellis, Sydney's ex-husband and the chief of detectives at the Memphis Police Department

Episodes

Production

Development

On January 10, 2019, it was announced that NBC had given the production a pilot order. The pilot was written by Dean Georgaris who executive produces alongside David Janollari and Michael Aguilar. Production companies involved with the pilot include David Janollari Entertainment and

Universal Television Universal Television LLC (abbreviated as UTV) is an American television production company that is a subsidiary of Universal Studio Group, a division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It serves as the network television production arm of NBC; a predeces ...

. On May 6, 2019, it was announced that the production had been given a series order, together with '' Sunnyside''. A day after that, it was announced that the series would premiere in the fall of 2019 and air on Monday night entry in the 2019–20 television season at 10:00 p.m. The daily newspaper in Memphis, ''

The Commercial Appeal ''The Commercial Appeal'' (also known as the ''Memphis Commercial Appeal'') is a daily newspaper of Memphis, Tennessee, and its surrounding metropolitan area. It is owned by the Gannett Company; its former owner, the E. W. Scripps Company, also ...

'', reported by June that the series would likely be filmed on location in the city, beginning on July 22, for its initial order of 10 episodes. The series premiered on September 23, 2019. On August 8, 2019, NBC ordered six extra scripts, bringing the script order to 16. On October 17, 2019, it was announced that the six extra script order was canceled and the order was reduced back to 10 episodes. On June 15, 2020, NBC officially canceled the series after one season.

Casting

In February 2019, it was announced that

, Caitlin McGee,

, and

had been cast in the pilot's lead roles. Alongside the pilot's order announcement, in March 2019 it was reported that Stony Blyden,

and MaameYaa Boafo had joined the cast.

Release

Marketing

On May 12, 2019, NBC released the first official trailer for the series.

Reception

The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported a 38% approval rating with an average rating of 6.62/10, based on 13 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Though ''Bluff City Law'' procedural proceedings often feel outdated, fans of Jimmy Smits and Caitlin McGee may find comfort in its familiar beats."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which uses a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

, assigned a score of 44 out of 100 based on 7 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Ratings

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bluff City Law 2010s American crime drama television series 2010s American legal television series 2010s American LGBT-related drama television series 2010s American workplace drama television series 2019 American television series debuts 2019 American television series endings American legal drama television series English-language television shows Lesbian-related television shows NBC original programming Television series by Universal Television Television shows set in Tennessee