The Defenders was an American television series, a courtroom drama which ran on CBS from 1961-1965. It starred E.G. Marshall and Robert Reed as a father-and-son legal team who specialized in defending hopeless cases. It was created by television writer Reginald Rose. It was a slight reworking of his 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 as a prosecutor 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 (which many called a sequel) 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 first episode ("Payback"). Production was halted and the remaining canned episodes, "Choices of Evils" and "Taking the First", aired as movie specials in 1998.
Recent law school graduate (Robert Reed) joins his father (E.G. Marshall) as the pair tackle challenging legal cases, often involving issues which were highly touchy for the times (abortion, euthanasia, "un-American" activities, movie censorship). In most the freshly minted lawyer has much to learn from his father's extensive legal experience. Written by Ed Stephan
