Left to right: Alice, Elliot, Nancy, Max
Law & Order, but without the Order.
—Series tagline
Canadian courtroom dramedy that ran from 2004 to 2006, winner of four Gemini Awards. Set in Toronto's Old City Hall courtrooms, it gave a much more realistic and unromanticized view of courtroom procedure than most similar shows: instead of a Mystery of the Week, there would be multiple cases per episode, and most of them would go to Plea Court, Bail Court, or the ever-depressing Mental Health Court. Very rarely would a trial actually commence, and even more rarely would the case be particularly high profile. It was usually stuff like illegally being on the premises or drugs.
It focused primarily on a young defense attorney named Alice De Raey, who is good-natured but has the tendency to swear under her breath. She is occasionally helped by scarily efficient law student Nancy Dao, scruffy and sex-crazed defense counsel Elliot Sacks, and her boss, James Ryder, who is in the middle of a nervous breakdown.
Not to be confused with the Australian relationship dramedy Wonderland.
Provides examples of the following tropes:
- Alice Allusion: The main character's name is Alice DeRaey. And it's Wonderland.
- Ambiguously Gay: Crown Prosecutor David Kaye (not to be confused with the voice actor). He's fashion-conscious, moonlights as a hairstylist, and mentions that he loves musical theatre.
- Amoral Attorney: Notably averted. The lawyers in the show are portrayed as ordinary people doing their best to work with a painfully flawed system, sometimes doing some genuine good and sometimes just trying to get through the case without making things worse for their client. Played straight with Jack Angel in Season 3.
- Animal Wrongs Group:Alice: You are a member of PETA, are you not?
Witness: Yes. Does that make me a criminal?
Judge Fraser: No, but it does make you an opinionated pain in the butt. - Bunny-Ears Lawyer: In Season 3, Elliot goes through an identity crisis and tries new "looks" for himself, including Goth and dressing exactly like Kaye. Judge Frasier also has the tendency to hum loudly when people he doesn't like are talking, and to complain of boredom.
- Catchphrase: Judge Malone gradually acquires "There must be something we can do to help this man/woman/child."
- Chronic Villainy: As part of its more realistic approach to court drama, the show frequently features repeat offenders coming through the system.
- Deadpan Snarker: Most of the main cast has shades of this, but it's especially apparent in Alice, Kaye, and Judge Frasier.
- Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Alice occasionally gets called on her external monologue.Alice: It was nothing. I was just talking to myself.James: Oh. That's not good.
- Domestic Abuse: Quite common in the cases Alice and her coworkers work on. The show doesn't shy away from the uglier sides of the topic, or the effect it has on people who live through it.
- Freudian Slip: After Elliot reveals too much about his adolescence during a trial, Judge Serkis accidentally calls him "Mr. Sex".
- Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Nancy is Vietnamese, but also speaks Chinese and Tagalog. When dealing with Asian defendants from other backgrounds, she chastises them for making "us" (i.e. Asians) look bad.
- Latin Lover: Elliot dates the courtroom's Spanish translator for a little while, though it ultimately doesn't last.
- Magical Negro: Subverted with Mr. Jackson, who is a highly religious and sweet-natured homeless black man, but also very smart and asks for respect from the people he talks to.
- Monster Clown: Played with. Judge Frasier develops a bizarre obsession with clowns and fills his office with porcelain ones, which frighten children in one scene. They ultimately serve as a sort of Morality Pet for him.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. There are two characters with the surname Davis: Anthony Davis, a black lawyer who used to be a cop, and Rosemary Davis, a white drug addict who appeared in a few episodes.
- Parents as People: Zig-Zagged. Alice's mother was an alcoholic, but Alice claims she always did her best and was always there for Alice when she needed her. However, her older sister claims that their mother was terrible and Alice was just too young to understand that she was sheltered from the worst of it. It's never revealed which of them, if either, is right.
- Promotion to Opening Titles: In Season Two, Yanna McIntosh (playing Zona Robinson) is added to the opening sequence. Vik Sahay (playing Anil Sharma) is added in Season Three.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
- Judge Frasier's infamous "BIZARRE! MEXICAN! NIGHTMARE!"
- Also, Richard Waugh's character, repeatedly questioned as to the location of his mom, eventually screams "AT! THE! LAKE!"
- Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Very much averted. Characters frequently speak over each other, don't enunciate their words, and generally talk as naturally as possible rather than overexaggerating for the camera. This is something of creator George Walker's trademark.
- Sassy Black Woman: Zona can come off as this. The show occasionally features much more blatant examples as one-off characters who appear in the courtroom for a case.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Elliot tries to use this as a way of hitting on a woman, speculating that in her native South America, her beauty must have been a curse.
- Special Guest: Quite a few actors did guest spots as defendants, complainants, or witnesses, including Frank McKenna of The Red Green Show, Graham Greene, and Richard "Albert Wesker" Waugh.
- Verbal Tic: Alice has the tendency to swear under her breath.
- Wire Fu - A defendant claims to have been intimidated by the martial arts stance of a Chinese man he put in the hospital.Defendant: "I had just seen that movie, Crouching Tiger or whatever—"Judge Frasier: "And you thought he was gonna fly?"
- You Are Number 6: In one episode, a mentally unstable woman claims a man, who is an agent of the Catholic Church, kidnaps her every week. This nefarious man has no name and is only known by a roman numeral. It turns out to be her son taking her to doctor's appointments.
