A Law Show Set 25 Years from Now

aaron240 writes "CBS will be airing a pilot of a new show called 'Century City' tonight, Tuesday, March 16th. CNN has the story. The executive producer, Ed Zuckerman, had this to say about the future state of the law in America: 'Our future is a positive future. We assume that things are basically going to get better, progress will continue,' Zuckerman says. 'There will be problems -- new inventions, new technologies will bring with them difficulties -- but it's a bright future.' He also makes it clear that 'This is not a 'Blade Runner''. Is there any chance it will offer a decent treatment of the issues Open Source advocates worry about today? If he's so positive, could he possibly know anything about software patents to say nothing of SCO?"

Comments

Not ANOTHER law show?

[andyrut]

This might turn out to be a great show. But really, there's already a glut of legal shows on television (The Practice, Judging Amy, JAG, etc.), and using a gimmick like setting it in the future won't attract me to it.

Is there any chance it will offer a decent treatment of the issues Open Source advocates worry about today? If he's so positive, could he possibly know anything about software patents to say nothing of SCO?

Don't expect it to even come close to issues important to us nerds.

There's just something lacking in a show that focuses on such riveting legal issues as "should a player with a super-accurate bionic eye be allowed to play professional baseball?" Really, this is an actual plot line that will be in "Century City."

Re:Not ANOTHER law show?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a logical extension of current issues like "Should players be allowed to chemically enhance their bodies?"

You may not be interested in sports, but I am, and I'd be curious to see how they argue it, pro and con.

Too bad I don't have a TV anymore.

Re:Not ANOTHER law show?

[somethinghollow]

Not to mention that a show about OSS would be more boring to the general public than any given APT show (note: I said GENERAL public, which might not be YOU). OSS just isn't good entertainment unless 1) it's real and 2) you're a geek. Hell, I wouldn't watch it. Speculating about the future of OSS would be pointless. Things that adhere to evolution via demands (as OSS projects do) don't always stick to a plan.

Re:Not ANOTHER law show?

[kettch]

It'll probably be like some of the other shows that I started to watch. Whether they are lawyer shows, medical shows, or whatever. They start out dealing with interesting topics/situations. However, at some point the characters start having a personal life. They start banging other characters. Then they start banging clients. Then the show starts bringing in a new outrageous guest star every week. Then they start swapping new characters in every month.
Another thing they do is to do "ripped from the headlines" plots. And since it takes months for a show to go through production and actually make it to TV, I never remember what the hell they are talking about.

I hate TV

Re:Not ANOTHER law show?

[Mac Scientist]

There's just something lacking in a show that focuses on such riveting legal issues as "should a player with a super-accurate bionic eye be allowed to play professional baseball?"

By taking place in the future, it might free up the writiers to deal with touchy issues of the present, without treading on someone's toes (think Murphy Brown, Dan Quail, and unwed motherhood). Looks like they already have some, but here's a few future issues that could spark some controversy:

human cloning for disease treatment vs longevity

computer graphic use of the dead and famous in movies and commercials

undetectable computer doctoring of photos and recordings in news reporting

competition in sports between normal and physiologically enhanced players

undetectable biologically induced physical enhancement

advanced math methods in accounting to artificially increase earnings

Wait, I think I've seen these somewhere before...

Call me crazy,

[Mike the Mac Geek]

But I think this will be more along the lines of family law, divorces, and criminal defense rather than copyright law, etc.

Not too many people find copyright law and open source law rulings terribly entertaining.

C'mon

[Anonymous Coward]

"a legal drama set in the year 2030, where the lawyers find that though laws change, people remain the same."

Does that sound like something that would discuss issues like software licenses? No, it sounds like a legal soap opera. I don't think this will outlast a season.

Why would he care about sco or anything like that?

[upstart1234]

Why would someone doing a tv show about law in the future really give a damn about the issues with SCO or anything about Open Source. Please people do you really think anyone out in the world but us (ie the slashdot crowd) gives a rat ass about these things?

OSS?

[NineNine]

Can somebody please explain to me what OSS has to do with a futuristic law show? I swear, I expect any day to see a story on something even *more* inane, such as a new color for Pepsi, and somehow, /. is going to relate that to OSS. There really IS more to life than OSS, people! Hell, there's a LOT more to *geek* life than OSS!

Re:Bright Future?

[AuMatar]

While I don't disagree that women should be able to vote anywhere, exactly why do you think that will reduce war? We've had more wars in the US in the past century with women voting than in the century before without.

Well

[Operating Thetan]

This is not a 'Blade Runner'

Well done. Blade Runner is well written, original and high quality. This is network sci fi/law drama, respectively the worst written* and the most overused of TV drama settings

*Some of it may be good, but for every Star Trek or Babylon 5 there are 2 Milleniums or Space:Above and Beyonds

Re:Not everyone thinks this is positive

[nomadic]

In other words they do to law what Star Trek did to physics. That's what turned me off of the various Trek series; they invented fake science to solve fake scientific problems, and expected us to care.

"You honor, we plead cybernetic estoppel."

Things are gonna get better?

[dfenstrate]

Begin Rant
Our future is a positive future. We assume that things are basically going to get better, progress will continue,' Zuckerman says. 'There will be problems -- new inventions, new technologies will bring with them difficulties -- but it's a bright future.'

You know one huge improvement in our lives that this show likely won't consider? Erasing every single law on the books every 5-10 years.

Does anyone find it odd that we have to live, for fear of imprisonment, under a set of laws and regulations so conflicting, non-intuitive, and complex, that one needs a 6 year education to begin to understand the law?

Need an example? Look at Martha Stewart, soon to be imprisoned for basically lying to cops about a crime they couldn't prove she did anyway. Over an amount of money that was a fraction of what it probably cost to prosecute her. And she wasn't under oath. I care nothing about Martha Stewart personally, but the scenario stinks to me.

The US Code is hundreds of thousands of pages. Most of it is rot, laws set by legislatures to grant special priveleges to certain constituencies- or a sketchy, contrived delegation of Congress' lawmaking power- The EPA, anyone?- that we could dispense with and make the country a better place. I doubt anyone can go a full year without breaking a good half dozen laws, even with the best intentions.

So many laws and regulations could only come from a body who is deluded into thinking that the cure to any percieved societal ill is even more government. I suppose I can't blame them too much- when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail- but it's far past time to clean house.

Oh yeah, another lawyer show- woo-fucking-hoo. No, I did not read the FA. /Rant

Oh yeah, vote for me when I'm old enough to be a Senator, so I can try- likely in vain- to fix it. Thank you.

Re:Man science moves fast...

[IronBlade]

but I must express my doubts that LA will have maglev monorails and all cars will be fuel cell powered by then.

Well, if the site I link to is any indication, then the cars will have to run on something other than petroleum products.
Would be interesting to see if the coming energy crisis will be covered at all...
Somehow, I doubt it, as ignorance (and/or denial) is bliss...

Re:Why would he care about sco or anything like th

[ceejayoz]

Hell, not even Slashdotters would watch it.

Investigator: OH MY GOD! LINE FIVE IS STOLEN FROM MICRO-FORD-AOL-SOFT-WARNER!
Software Pirate: Oh no. You have found me. I am in trouble.

I mean, honestly, it's difficult to make something like that interesting viewing.

Re:neat idea, but...

[fermion]

These are the enduring issues of technology. All the computer stuff we are going through is just a phase. Few other than historians will remeber or care. How many of you know there was a tiny part of the steam engine that had significant effects on the course of history due to it's legal ambiguity? How many of you talk about the technological wonder of a shovel or sewage pipes even though both of these had profound effects on the course of civilization. Does anyone even think of tube television as a technological marvel?

These two issues are important. There are physical appearance clauses in contacts. As medical technology advances, those clauses will likely become more stringant. Television has dealt with these clauses, for instance in Murphy Brown. I suspect that we will also see cases where athletes are required to take certain drugs, perhaps even in middle school.

And cloning is on everyones mind. Even if we never have a situation where a human is cloned for harvesting, the purpose of sci-fi is to create a dialogue about the issues so we have some understanding of the key points before a crisis situation develops.

I think the coolest technological plot would be a kid wanted to get a computer implant, but the school rules forbid it. Believe it. It will happen.