Reviews after the show’s premiere were mixed. Variety did not seem impressed. “Nothing here really pops, though, other than the world-class beauty of Shahi, who has yet to find a regular vehicle to capitalize on it,” the review read. “All told, ‘Fairly Legal’ feels as if the network—despite riding a nifty string of successes by placing a light spin on familiar genres—has dipped into this particular shallow pool once too often,” the review continued.
But the review didn’t completely dismiss the show. “Granted, there’s probably an audience that will be moved by Kate’s mixed emotions about her ex, or those heart-to-heart chats with her dead father’s ashes—and maybe the show deserves a critic more apt to be moved by such sentimentality,” Variety’s review of the show read.
A review of Fairly Legal in USA Today was a bit more positive, but like Varieity’s review, did not offer huge praise for the show. “If the three episodes made available for preview are a fair guide, expect the weekly blend to be fairly predictable…. While we all hope for the best from new series,” the review in USA Today read, “odds are most people aren’t expecting greatness from ‘Fairly Legal’ —which works out well, because that’s not what the show is designed to provide. It’s a well-constructed piece of popular entertainment from a dependable provider of the same, with an easy-to-like star and an easy-to-grasp premise.
“Add it all up, and you get a show that’s pretty good. And at USA, pretty is good enough,” the review concluded.
But the San Francisco Gate review acknowledged the difficulty of legal dramas. “One challenge for Michael Sardo, creator of ‘Fairly Legal,’ is that mediation isn’t always as sexy as, say, murder trials. In place of dead bodies and whodunits, ‘Fairly Legal’ gives us family squabbles over barbecue recipes and custody fights over a little girl between her widowed stepfather and his late wife’s Croatian mother,” the San Francisco Gate review continued, “‘Fairly Legal’ is adequately entertaining, thanks in large part to Shahi, an engaging actress who looks like Anne Hathaway…. From a story point of view, it’s the thing that may give ‘Fairly Legal’ a fighting chance on basic cable.”
The Los Angeles Times offered the most positive review, and like others, praised Shahi for her role in the show. “USA continues its rather remarkable winning streak with ‘Fairly Legal,’ an energetically delightful dramedy about a San Francisco mediator played by Sarah Shahi… Shahi, last seen on the short-lived but wonderful ‘Life,’ is Kate Reed, a former attorney so unpredictable she wears Christian Louboutins but lives on a boat and so frustrated by the law that she becomes a mediator. As such, she uses her considerable capacity for empathetic diplomacy to help people solve their own problems…,” the Times said.
“It’s actually a fine and refreshing message and ‘Fairly Legal’ is a bit weightier, in terms of themes and issues, than some of the other shows in USA’s increasingly terrific lineup.… The ‘Fairly Legal’ writers manage to make this intellectually formidable centerpiece lively and intriguing and Shahi, whose timing is just as exceptional as her looks, makes it funny and sexy. The rest of the cast give us characters who may have started off stock but quickly become multilayered and, like the show itself, capable of all manner of surprises,” the Times review concluded.
Shahi, born to an Iranian father and a Spanish mother, is married to actor Steve Howey, with whom she has a son, Wolf.
Shahi reports that she is the great-great-granddaughter of Fath Ali Shah who became Shah of Iran in 1797 when John Adams was president.
The show airs on Thursday nights at 10/9c on the USA Network.
