I’m not sure how long it takes to bring a TV series from concept to the small screen, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s about 20 months if you really push.
I’m betting that NBC’s Outlaw was a brainstorm that occurred about the time someone realized that Obama was going to be President. Consider the premise: an ultra right-wing Supreme Court Justice, gambler, womanizer, picks up an ACLU lawyer one night after boozing and betting in Atlantic City, and in the morning he becomes a new man! (I’m surprised he didn’t come out of the closet, too!) He retires from the bench to open his own law practice to protect the “little guy” against capitalists, conservatives, all the evil exploiters of the downtrodden! (But I repeat myself.)
How could it miss?
Apparently they showed three episodes an then put it on hiatus.
Which is now permanent.
All together now, aaaaaawwwww!
UPDATE: Reader Sarah left an interesting comment which caused me to do a little research into the writing of the show. As far as I can tell, the creator, producer, and writer for the shows that aired is John Eisendrath. He was interviewed before the show premiered, and here is his explanation of the thoughts behind its creation:
I wanted to do this show because I do not have much faith in the legal system and I have seen innocent people be hurt by it. And I longed for [change] particularly by judges who knew they were doing something that would hurt innocent people but felt that they were bound by the law to hurt them because that was their job, to uphold the law.
I wanted to write a story about a judge who couldn’t do that anymore, who felt like he had a higher calling that went beyond (h)is obligation to following the law as a judge. But as a conservative, he knew that he couldn’t just make it up as he went along, so he left to do something in pursuit of that higher calling.
Yup, that’s one definition of conservatism. And a beautiful definition of why liberals love judicial activism: Don’t uphold the law, make it up as you go along!