Subject Matter
According to creator Reginald Rose, "the law is the subject of our programs: not crime, not mystery, not the courtroom for its own sake. We were never interested in producing a 'who-done-it' which simply happened to be resolved each week in a flashy courtroom battle of wits." And unlike Perry Mason, which also ran on CBS, victory was "far from certain on The Defenders—as were morality and justice."
Topics featured in the series included capital punishment, "no-knock" searches, custody rights of adoptive parents, the insanity defense, the "poisoned fruit doctrine", immigration quotas, the Hollywood blacklist, jury nullification, and Cold War visa restrictions.
A 1962 episode entitled "The Benefactor"—in which the father-son legal team defended an abortionist—was the most controversial; all of the series' three regular advertisers refused to sponsor the episode, necessitating a last-minute replacement.
Read more about this topic: The Defenders (1961 TV series)
Famous quotes containing the words subject matter, subject and/or matter:
“I got quite bored, serving in the bar. Since I was there, the customers wouldn’t talk about women, and with half their subject matter denied them, it was: horses, silence; horses, silence.”
—Bernadette Devlin (b. 1947)
“There is a vulgar persuasion, that the ignorance of women, by favoring their subordination, ensures their utility. ‘Tis the same argument employed by the ruling few against the subject many in aristocracies; by the rich against the poor in democracies; by the learned professions against the people in all countries.”
—Frances Wright (1795–1852)
“Value is the most invincible and impalpable of ghosts, and comes and goes unthought of while the visible and dense matter remains as it was.”
—W. Stanley Jevons (1835–1882)