This ‘Guardian’ Still No Angel

Nick Fallin has a lot going for him: intelligence, good looks and a job as a corporate lawyer in his father’s Pittsburgh firm. Yet with slimeball tendencies and with drugs threatening to torpedo his career, he’s far from perfect.

Much the same can be said of CBS’ “The Guardian,” which traces Fallin’s life. The second-season show has fine acting and healthy ratings. It also possesses an intriguing premise: To avoid disbarment, Nick must perform 1,500 hours of community service at a legal services firm, straddling the worlds of corporate and not-for-profit law.

Yet the series has a troubling addiction--not to drugs, but to improbable plot twists, usually involving conflicts of interest among its well-connected protagonists.

Tonight’s episode, sandwiched between the CBS legal dramas “JAG” and “Judging Amy” at 9 p.m., is no exception. Nick (Simon Baker) has started his own firm and must represent a developer who wants to dig up part of a cemetery. It’s not a particularly popular case, especially with the survivors of those to be exhumed.

Nick, being the shark he is, has devised a practical if not morally sound solution. His legal adversary is, of course, his boss at the legal services firm (Alan Rosenberg).

As if that weren’t enough, there are complications involving Nick’s father, Burton (Dabney Coleman), who has left his own firm and is waiting to be sworn in as a judge. Without revealing what the conundrums are, let’s just say they’d be at home on any episode of “Days of Our Lives” or “General Hospital.”