''For the People'' 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 that aired on ABC from March 13, 2018, to May 16, 2019. On May 11, 2018, ABC renewed the series for a second season, which premiered on March 7, 2019. On May 9, 2019, ABC canceled the series after two seasons.

Premise

Set in the

Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of New York State. Two of these are in New York City: New ...

(SDNY) Federal Court, known as "The Mother Court", ''For the People'' follows new lawyers—both

prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal tria ...

s and federal public defenders—as they handle the most high-profile and high-stakes cases and their personal lives intersect.

Cast and characters

* Hope Davis as Jill Carlan * Ben Shenkman as Roger Gunn * Jasmin Savoy Brown as Allison Adams * Susannah Flood as Kate Littlejohn * Wesam Keesh as Jay Simmons * Regé-Jean Page as Leonard Knox * Ben Rappaport as Seth Oliver *

Britt Robertson Brittany Leanna Robertson (born April 18, 1990) is an American actress. She is known for her lead role in '' The First Time'' (2012), and has appeared in the films ''Tomorrowland'' (2015), '' The Space Between Us'' (2017), ''A Dog's Purpose'' ...

as Sandra Bell *

Anna Deavere Smith Anna Deavere Smith is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is known for her roles as National Security Advisor Dr. Nancy McNally in '' The West Wing'' (2000–06), hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus in the Showtime series ''N ...

as Tina Krissman * Vondie Curtis-Hall as Judge Nicholas Byrne * Charles Michael Davis as Ted (season 2)

Production

Britne Oldford and

Lyndon Smith Lyndon Smith (born June 7, 1989) is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Natalie in the NBC drama '' Parenthood'' (2013–2015) and Dierdre in the TNT police drama ''Public Morals'' (2015). Life Smith is from Pensacola, Florida ...

were cast in the pilot as Sandra Black and Allison Anderson, respectively. Both roles were later recast with

as Black (renamed Sandra Bell) and Jasmin Savoy Brown as Anderson (renamed Allison Adams). After re-shooting the pilot and shooting the second episode with the new actresses, production was temporarily shut down in September 2017 in order to rewrite existing scripts for the rest of the season to adjust the show to Robertson and Brown's new dynamic. Filming for the second season began on September 23, 2018.

Episodes

Season 1 (2018)

Season 2 (2019)

Reception

Ratings

Overall

Season 1

Season 2

Critical response

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 ...

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 Wan ...

, the series holds an approval rating of 69% based on 16 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''For the People'' concept may be all too familiar, but the character depth and clever dialogue help set it apart." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that 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 average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, it has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

Official website
*{{IMDb title 2010s American drama television series 2010s American legal television series 2018 American television series debuts 2019 American television series endings American legal drama television series American Broadcasting Company original programming English-language television shows Television series by ABC Studios Television series by Shondaland Television shows directed by Steph Green Television shows set in New York City Television series about prosecutors