In new legal drama, a case of deja vu

Mark-Paul Gosselaar plays a public defender in New York. (TNT)

Remember that famous scene from "A Few Good Men," when Tom Cruise's self-righteous lawyer yells, "I want the truth!"? After watching three episodes of TNT's foolish new courtroom drama - called, ironically, "Raising the Bar" - I felt as though I'd sat through that fist-shaking Cruise clip on a nonstop loop for three hours.

"Raising the Bar," tonight at 10 after "The Closer," is an irritatingly unoriginal series about an impassioned public defender in New York who wants the truth so badly he's willing to insult judges and spend time in jail. Played with smug intensity by Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Jerry Kellerman doesn't actually scream "I want the truth!" in the courtroom. But he telegraphs his idealism and rectitude with every expression on his long face, every shake of his straggly, irreverent hair. He's little more than a moral compass with a shag.

If I seem particularly harshed out, it's because "Raising the Bar" was co-created by Steven Bochco, a pioneer of the legal genre, the guy behind "L.A. Law" and "Murder One." His ground-breaking TV work was the springboard from which David E. Kelley found his way to "The Practice," "Ally McBeal," and "Boston Legal." And yet with "Raising the Bar," Bochco lazily retreads every legal-drama cliche that he helped originate. If you randomly collated the storylines and characters in Bochco's and Kelley's old scripts, you'd probably end up printing out this show.

Gosselaar's Kellerman is part of a familiar ensemble of lawyers who spar by day and convene at a drinking establishment by night. Bochco doesn't even bother giving each of them much depth or back story - they're just stereotypes in professional outfits, deployed to create sparks in the courtroom and in the bedroom. Melissa Sagemiller, who was so affecting in "Sleeper Cell," is the beautiful lawyer in the DA's office who gets hit on by her sexist boss. Jonathan Scarfe plays an unethical, ambitious, and closeted gay court clerk. And Natalia Cigliuti is the married Brooklyn gal who catches Jerry's eye.

Jane Kaczmarek is marginally entertaining as the nutty judge who, in what is typical of the show's laziness, seems to preside over every case Jerry gets. TV's fictional judges are all quirky autocrats these days, but Kaczmarek manages to make hers somewhat distinctive, with a narrow, intolerant gaze and an unexpected sexual neediness. She's a stickler for process, and she despises Jerry's stubborn honor even more than we do. Kaczmarek, so memorable as the militaristic mother on "Malcolm in the Middle," doesn't go for laughs here, and yet there is something amusingly absurdist about seeing her in a judge's robe.

The legal cases in "Raising the Bar" make the knee-jerk twists of the latter-day "Law & Order" cases seem almost genius. These are some of the most lackluster, unimaginative trials brought to TV in years, as every defendant's guilt or innocence is written all over his or her face from the get-go. Racial issues play out in the courtroom as simplistically and predictably as they might in after-school specials.

You've already seen "Raising the Bar," many times, even if it had different titles and different faces.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. For more on TV, visit boston.com/ae/tv/blog/.