The Paper Chase (TV series)

Season 1

James T. Hart is a law student from rural Minnesota who enters the intensely competitive environment of a prestigious law school specifically to study with Professor Charles W. Kingsfield, the world's leading authority on contract law. Kingsfield inspires both awe and fear in his students in his unremitting determination to prepare them for the practice of law.

To cope with the heavy workload, Hart joins a study group organized by Franklin Ford III. Ford is under immense pressure to succeed. His family has produced an unbroken string of outstanding lawyers going back generations, culminating in his demanding father, the senior partner in a very prestigious Wall Street law firm. The study group includes smooth woman-chaser Thomas Craig Anderson, slob Willis Bell, idealistic activist Elizabeth Logan, and struggling Jonathan Brooks, who is married to Asheley. Brooks drops out after he voluntarily confesses to cheating.

Hart works part-time at Ernie's Tavern to help pay his way through school. In the pilot, a waitress (Marilu Henner) shows him the ropes.

There was a four-year hiatus between the end of the first season and the start of the second.

Season 2

Hart survives the first year with flying colors and joins the staff of Law Review (an honor reserved for the top students), under the leadership of Gerald Golden. He becomes romantically involved with first-year law student Connie Lehman, only to lose her when she wins a Rhodes Scholarship and goes to Oxford University. Later, he repeatedly clashes with Law Review rival Rita Harriman, though he admits to Ford that he is perversely attracted to her.

Season 3

Hart is now the president of Law Review. The new students include Ford's younger brother Tom and former housewife Rose Samuels. The Ford brothers have to come to terms with their sibling rivalry. Rose deals with a surprise divorce and being so much older than her classmates.

Season 4

This season consists of only six episodes, including a two-part finale. In the two-hour finale, Hart has to decide between taking a federal court clerkship or a position in a private firm after graduation. His decision is further complicated when he is invited to apply for a newly vacant faculty position at the school, an option opposed by Kingsfield, who believes he lacks the necessary experience. Hart, the top student in the graduating class, gives the commencement speech, bringing the series to a close.

Development

The CBS television network aired the series in the 1978–1979 season. John Houseman reprised his movie role, and James Stephens played Hart. It was cancelled after one year; PBS subsequently rebroadcast all of the episodes. In 1983, pay-cable network Showtime brought back the show with both Houseman and Stephens, as well as some other members of the original television cast. At the end of the fourth season, Hart finally graduates from law school.

Theme music

In the first year, the theme song was "The First Years", written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox, and performed by Seals and Crofts. In the pilot, the opening used an instrumental version, and the ending used a different vocal version. Starting in the second year, a classical instrumental piece replaced it.

Opening narrative

In the first year, the program opens with Professor Kingsfield, in class, saying, "The study of law is something new and unfamiliar to most of you—unlike any other schooling you have ever known before." After the theme song, he continues: "You teach yourselves the law but I train your minds. You come in here with a skull full of mush, and, if you survive, you leave thinking like a lawyer."

Awards

CableACE Award:

• 1985: Best Dramatic Series
• 1987: Best Dramatic Series

Syndication

In the late 1980s, The Family Channel rebroadcast the entire series in a late-night time slot, at midnight Eastern Time. The series was later seen in the early 1990s on A&E, and in the early 2000s on GoodLife Television.

International broadcast

The series aired in the UK on BBC Two.