''Outlaw'' 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

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 ...

. The one-hour courtroom drama stars

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 ...

as a

Supreme Court Justice The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest-ranking judicial body in the United States. Its membership, as set by the Judiciary Act of 1869, consists of the chief justice of the United States and eight Associate Justice of the Supreme ...

, Cyrus Garza, who resigns from the bench and returns to private practice in an elite law firm where Claire Sax, love interest to Garza, is a powerful senior partner. As part of the deal, the firm has an ex–Supreme Court Justice on their staff of lawyers and Garza is allowed to pick his team and the cases he works. The series premiered on Wednesday, September 15, 2010 (a day earlier in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

), and began airing on Fridays beginning September 24. On October 11, 2010, NBC cancelled the series after one season before the series finale aired on November 13, 2010.

Development and production

The series was originally titled ''Rough Justice'', and then briefly ''Garza''. NBC

green-lit To green-light is to give permission to proceed with a project. The term is a reference to the green traffic signal, indicating "go ahead". Film industry In the context of the film and television industries, to green-light something is to ...

the

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

, which was written by John Eisendrath, in late January 2010. In mid February, Terry George signed on to direct the pilot. Jesse Bradford was the first actor cast in early March. Jimmy Smits was cast next to headline the drama. Carly Pope and David Ramsey came on board a few days later. Filming for the pilot took place in late March and April, with some exterior shots done in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

and neighboring Bensalem,

Atlantic City, New Jersey Atlantic City, often known by its initials A.C., is a coastal resort city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States. The city is known for its casinos, boardwalk, and beaches. In 2020, the city had a population of 38,497.

, and in the

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area. NBC announced in mid-May 2010 that the network had picked up the pilot for the 2010–11 season. The series was expected to be produced in Los Angeles. On October 6, NBC announced it had placed production of the series on hiatus due to low ratings for the first three episodes. The hiatus became permanent after ratings failed to improve for the October 8 broadcast. Eight of the planned thirteen episodes have been produced. Four episodes had aired when NBC announced ''Outlaw'' cancellation. The remaining four were burned off on Saturdays through November 13.

Cast and characters

as Cyrus Garza *

David Ramsey David Paul Ramsey (born November 17, 1971) is an American actor, director, and martial artist, best known for his roles in The CW Arrowverse series '' Arrow'', '' The Flash'', ''Supergirl'', and '' Batwoman'' as John Diggle / Spartan, portrayin ...

as Al Druzinsky * Ellen Woglom as Mereta Stockman *

Carly Pope Carly Pope (born August 28, 1980) is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her roles on The WB's drama series ''Popular'' (1999–2001), supernatural drama series ''The Collector'' (2004–2005), USA Network's legal drama series '' Suits'' ...

as Lucinda Pearl *

Jesse Bradford Jesse Bradford (born May 28, 1979) is an American actor. He began his career as a child actor at the age of five and received two Young Artist Award for Best Leading Young Actor in a Feature Film nominations for his performances in ''King of the ...

as Eddie Franks *

Melora Hardin Melora Hardin (born June 29, 1967) is an American actress, known for her roles as Jan Levinson on NBC's ''The Office'' and Trudy Monk on USA Network's ''Monk'', and Tammy Cashman on Amazon Prime Video's '' Transparent'', for which she received ...

as Claire Sax (recurring)

Reception

As of September 15, 2010, ''Outlaw'' has an average score of 36/100 on

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 ...

based on 23 reviews from television critics. Barry Garron of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' appreciated the potential of ''Outlaw'' though he called the premise preposterous and likened it to a fairy tale. John Doyle of ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'' said that ''Outlaw'' is "not the best advertisement for quality TV drama." Doyle concluded by saying the show is "for fans of melodramatic legal shows only." In its first airing against CBS's new drama '' Blue Bloods'', on September 24, 2010, ''Outlaw'' was watched by roughly 4.893 million viewers, while ''Blue Bloods'' was watched by 13.013 million.

Episodes

The series premiered September 14, 2010 on

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in Canada and debuted in the U.S. on

on September 15, 2010. Though NBC moved ''Outlaw'' to Saturdays when they canceled the show Global continued to broadcast the remaining episodes on Fridays.

International broadcasts

*: Will begin airing after November 28, 2010 on

Seven Network The Seven Network (commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is a major Australian commercial free-to-air Television broadcasting in Australia, television network. It is owned by Seven West Media, Seven West Media Limited, and is one of ...

at 9:30 p.m., and it has been confirmed the entire season will air during the summer non-ratings period.

Home releases

On January 24, 2011, in conjunction with Amazon.com's manufactured-on-demand (MOD) program, a DVD of all eight episodes of the series was released. The cover art consists of the promotional poster, with a Universal logo and border around it.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Outlaw (Tv Series) 2010s American drama television series 2010 American television series debuts 2010 American television series endings 2010s American legal television series English-language television shows NBC original programming Television series by Universal Television Television shows set in Washington, D.C. Television series by Conaco