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The series was a slight reworking of Rose's 1957 two-part drama, The Defender, from the anthology series Studio One. In the original program, Ralph Bellamy played the father and William Shatner played his son. Shatner guest-starred in various roles in the later series, and the original drama later was incorporated into an episode of his series, Boston Legal. Original music for the series was scored by Frank Lewin and Leonard Rosenman.
A re-envisioned version of the series debuted on the Showtime network in 1997. Still called The Defenders, it focused on Beau Bridges and Martha Plimpton as the grandchildren of E.G. Marshall's character. They worked as lawyers and carried on the family legacy. However, Marshall died after completion of the second episode ("Choice Of Evils"). Production was halted and the remaining episode, "Taking the First", aired as a movie special in 1998.
A second season episode of Mad Men also featured an episode named "The Benefactor" that featured a brief clip from The Defenders episode of the same name. In the Mad Men episode, the Sterling Cooper advertising agency is trying to secure sponsors for The Defenders episode, which contains a plot involving abortion, after the regular sponsors pulled out because they claimed the episode (and subject matter) was "too controversial". The episode also offers a fictional backstory for the episode; that it was written for the third season of the series but rejected by the network for the usage of abortion as a plotline. The following season, the writers produced a script which revolved around the theme of cannibalism but the episode was rejected by director who was assigned to film the episode due to the content. The director's refusal led to the network being forced to film the abortion-centric script, to which an executive assigned to find advertisers for the show proclaims was the plan all along.
Read more about this topic: The Defenders (1961 TV series)
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