User Reviews

I appreciated this episode of "The Paper Chase" because, sadly, things like this do occur. At my oldest daughter's university, they had a similar situation where a student killed himself--most likely due to the very high pressure of being in a elite school.

When the show begins, a first-year student in the dorm is found dead--having hung himself in his room. Soon the dead guy's father arrives on campus looking for answers. He is not on a vendetta or anything...he just wants to understand WHY. The remainder of the show consists of the man allowing friends and associates of his dead son to talk and tell him about his last days. What I appreciated is that it didn't blame people--even with the father, he did perhaps pressure his son but he was not some stereotypical jerk.

Worth seeing and very good EXCEPT for the songs. They sounded as if they were performed on a sound stage and really seemed like filler.

I remember this episode all like it aired only yesterday. Watched it for the third time yesterday. Acting was superb and story extremely sad. Enjoyed music of main character. Only wish he had been in a few episodes before this to give us a sense of his personality. Unfortunately the actor appears to have left profession after this role. Too bad since there was online praise for his role in The Wanderers. You can't be human if the dads performance talking to Hart doesn't get to you.

...against episodes like this in any series. You know, the ones that focus almost entirely on new characters you know (or care) nothing about, and sideline all the regulars.

This odd script seems like a rewrite from another series, using the regular cast as handy bit players in order to advance the central plot about a law student who kills himself, and his father's quest for truth. The script itself is boring, with almost every scene consisting of two characters talking, and the plot depends on clichés we've seen once too often. Gone is any semblance of action, or even the group scenes (study groups, classrooms) that liven up the more "normal" episodes.

This is also executive producer Lynn Roth's first venture as a director, which may explain the number of scenes in which character's heads are chopped off by the frame.

For some reason, the execs seem to have saved some of the weakest episodes to round out season two. This is probably the worst of the lot.