TV Reviews : ‘TrialWatch’ Turns Into a Trial for Viewers

Being that we’re awash with law and lawyer series and being that we’re likewise awash with truer-than-true-life magazine programs and being that we’re further awash with purply prose from tabloid shows, then “TrialWatch” makes perfect sense.

Promising “Real People, Real Trials!,” the weekday series premieres today on NBC (at 10:30 a.m. on Channels 4 and 36, 11 a.m. on Channel 39).

Our hosts are Robb Weller, who continues his career at hosting whatever needs to be hosted, and L.A. lawyer Lisa Specht, who used to comment on the law for KABC-TV Channel 7 and ran unsuccessfully for Los Angeles city attorney in 1985. Weller seems to do most of the work, then asks Specht for some opinion.

They both try to breathe wow into their narrations: Says Weller of one story, “What a story!”; says Specht of another, “What a story!” Another story is “unbelievable!”

Well. . . . They aren’t that wowie, but there are possibilities here for exploring the continuing mysteries of the law. Today’s first program includes a piece on a woman who is forced to quit her job and move with her son to her ex-husband’s city, and a “Fatal Attraction” chiller about a murderous woman who stalks her ex-boyfriend.

There are clarifying summaries to provide a sense of fairness and balance, but there are also righteous indignation and hyperbolic overstatement: Is the family of a murdered man really “terrified” because the killer could be paroled in the year 2003?