"Canterbury's Law," March 10, Fox

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Elizabeth Canterbury (Julianna Margulies), the central character in "Canterbury's Law," a new drama series premiering on Fox Monday, March 10, 8-9 p.m. EDT, is a hard-driving Providence, R.I., defense attorney, prepared to win her cases by almost any means necessary.

In the pilot episode, she represents a young man accused of abducting and murdering a child.

Convinced that the perpetrator was, in fact, the victim's abusive father, Canterbury -- aided by her partner, former prosecutor Russell Krauss (Ben Shenkman) -- must find a way to put him on the stand and goad him into incriminating himself. Opposing their efforts is the cynical and perhaps corrupt Deputy Attorney General Zach Williams (Terry Kinney).

Away from the office, Canterbury is coping with the fragility of her marriage to law professor Matt Furey (Aidan Quinn) in the wake of a family tragedy, and trying to put an end to an adulterous affair. She defends this aspect of her life with the dubious claim that it has served some kind of therapeutic purpose.

Also troubling, from a strictly moral perspective, are the methods Canterbury is willing to adopt on behalf of her clients, which in this installment include convincing a witness to commit perjury. Though Krauss challenges her for this, she maintains her end-justifies-the-means outlook.

Overall, the program is engrossing, if downbeat, with Margulies effective in portraying her character's private anguish as well as her public brashness. In establishing its rough-and-tumble milieu, the script employs some crass language.

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