List of The Paper Chase episodes
This is a list of episodes for the television series The Paper Chase.
All four seasons of this show have been released on DVD by Shout! Factory.[1]
Series overview[]
| Season | Episodes | Originally aired | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First aired | Last aired | Network | ||||
| 1 | 22 | September 9, 1978 | April 24, 1979 | CBS | ||
| 2 | 19 | April 15, 1983 | August 21, 1984 | Showtime | ||
| 3 | 12 | May 11, 1985 | September 10, 1985 | |||
| 4 | 6 | June 28, 1986 | August 9, 1986 | |||
Episodes[]
Season 1 (1978–79)[]
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "The Paper Chase" | Joseph Hardy | James Bridges | September 9, 1978 | |
| Pilot: James Hart barely makes it to his first class with Professor Kingsfield on time. This does not go unnoticed. Kingsfield asks him the first question and discovers he has not read the assigned material. Kingsfield throws an imaginary funeral shroud over "the late Mr. Hart", meaning he no longer exists as far as the professor is concerned. Hart joins a study group with Franklin Ford III, Willis Bell, Thomas Anderson, and Linda O'Connor, who was replaced without explanation after the first episode by a new character, Elizabeth Logan. Hart comes up with a novel solution to his problem: he enters the classroom shrouded in a bed sheet as a ghost, bothering the professor into calling on him. Hart gives a good answer, earning himself a reprieve. | ||||||
| 2 | 2 | "The Man Who Would Be King" | Gwen Arner | John Jay Osborn, Jr. | September 19, 1978 | |
| Franklin Ford's father (Don Porter) visits the law school to interview second-year students for summer internships at his high-profile law firm, accompanied by Ford's sixteen-year-old sister. Ford goes to pieces when his father sits in on the class. Under pressure from his father, he runs for the prestigious law school council. He feels betrayed when Hart also runs and the rest of their study group unanimously back Hart. Ford and Hart make up and, by not showing up, enable Anderson to win by default. Ford's sister is attracted to Hart, who politely rejects her. Ford's father pressures the dean and Kingsfield to give preference to his son, but Kingsfield shows the elder Ford his efforts are damaging to his son and their relationship. | ||||||
| 3 | 3 | "A Day in the Life of..." | Philip Leacock | John Jay Osborn, Jr. | September 26, 1978 | |
| When Hart asks Kingsfield a question after class, he is told to find the answer for himself and present a report to Kingsfield the next morning. After Ford steals Bell's study group notes, Bell's outrage gets him and Hart barred from the library. Hart meets a woman who turns out to be the president of Law Review, who commissions a ghostwritten report for him. Hart elects to do the work himself, which is fortunate, as he is ordered by Kingsfield to give his report orally to the entire class. Logan gets arrested for encouraging girls school students to protest, but is released the next morning after Kingsfield speaks privately with the judge. Hart writes his parents a letter, confiding he thinks he is "going to be alright". | ||||||
| 4 | 4 | "Great Expectations" | Harvey S. Laidman | Ellison Carroll | October 3, 1978 | |
| Two drunken students—Sam Pray, a third-year law student, and Fitch, a dental-school student—break into the law school's dispensary during a dorm party. In pursuit of Fitch's affections, Anderson follows and is arrested at the scene. He faces a disciplinary hearing, chaired by Kingsfield, and possible expulsion. Anderson talks Hart into acting as his defense counsel. Fitch confesses, clearing Anderson. | ||||||
| 5 | 5 | "Voices of Silence" | Alex March | Stephen Kandel | October 10, 1978 | |
| As volunteers in a prison internship help program, Logan and Hart represent a political activist in an upcoming hearing. Logan, herself an activist, gets fooled by his seemingly sincere manner. | ||||||
| 6 | 6 | "Nancy" | William Hale | T. S. Cook | October 17, 1978 | |
| While dating a girl who appears to be the perfect match, Hart learns her father is wealthy, old-fashioned, and protective. Hart discovers the father was a mob lawyer after he is murdered. | ||||||
| 7 | 7 | "Da Da" | Philip Leacock | Gordon Hoban | October 31, 1978 | |
| Clayton finds his photographic memory is not enough in Kingsfield's class. The professor humiliates him in front of his fellow students when he is unable to analyze a case he has memorized. The pressure threatens his marriage and causes him to go on a drinking binge. Hart brings Clayton into the empty classroom at night, playing the part of Kingsfield and coaching him. The janitor calls Kingsfield in to see what is going on, but upon observing the proceedings, Kingsfield says, "Oh, they're just stretching." Later, Clayton successfully answers Kingsfield's question in class. Kim Cattrall played Clayton's wife. | ||||||
| 8 | 8 | "The Seating Chart" | Robert C. Thompson | James Bridges | November 14, 1978 | |
| Bell believes that his unflattering seating chart picture is the reason that he gets singled out in class and plots to change it secretly, with Hart's reluctant help. They sneak into Kingsfield's office late on a Friday night, but the professor's unexpected appearance results in them hiding and being inadvertently locked in a closet for the entire weekend. They manage to sneak out on Monday morning undetected, but in Bell's haste in substituting a new photo during their escape, he puts it in upside down. | ||||||
| 9 | 9 | "Moot Court" | Seymour Robbie | John Jay Osborn, Jr. | November 21, 1978 | |
| Raymond Livingston (Glynn Turman) is a highly disciplined black student, a West Point alumnus, who is teamed with his complete opposite, the slobbish Bell, as they go up against Hart and Logan in the final of the school's annual moot court contest. The long hours spent working together take an emotional toll. Hart becomes infatuated with Logan, while Bell is so fed up with being pushed incessantly by Livingston that he resigns from the competition. Livingston persuades Bell to change his mind. | ||||||
| 10 | 10 | "Kingsfield's Daughter" | Alex March | Gordon Hoban | November 28, 1978 | |
| Hart falls for a young woman who is surprisingly familiar with contract law and hostile to the law students who study it. (This is also a major part of the plot of the original film.) | ||||||
| 11 | 11 | "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" | Larry Elikann | John Jay Osborn, Jr. Leigh Curran | December 5, 1978 | |
| When Logan questions a visiting school alumnus, the liberal Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (Alan Napier), why he has never hired a female law clerk in his 30 years on the bench, she starts a controversy that gets out of hand, as women's rights organizations get involved. | ||||||
| 12 | 12 | "Bell and Love" | Peter Levin | Richard Kramer | December 12, 1978 | |
| Jenny, Hart's old high school girlfriend, leaves her husband and shows up on his doorstep. He asks Bell to help keep an eye on her when he and his study group are given a challenging assignment by Kingsfield; Bell quickly falls in love with her. | ||||||
| 13 | 13 | "An Act of Desperation" | Carl Kugel | James Menzies Marvin Kupfer | December 19, 1978 | |
| A struggling Jonathan is so desperate to pass Kingsfield's midterm, he hires someone to steal a copy of the test. He tricks the rest of his study group into believing that it is an old Kingsfield exam they can practice on, making them unwitting accessories to his cheating. | ||||||
| 14 | 14 | "Losing Streak" | Alex March | Shimon Wincelberg | January 19, 1979 | |
| Anderson develops a gambling problem which interferes with his studies. His friends help him out, in class and financially, whether he wants it or not. | ||||||
| 15 | 15 | "The Man in the Chair" | Robert C. Thompson | Jerome Ross | February 6, 1979 | |
| A student in a wheelchair is invited to join Hart's study group. He takes advantage of Bell and Ford, tries to seduce Logan, and competes for a scholarship that Hart is after, even though he does not need the money. | ||||||
| 16 | 16 | "A Matter of Anger" | Seymour Robbie | Albert Aley Marvin Kupfer | February 13, 1979 | |
| A black woman (Denise Nicholas) feels insecure and angry because she was accepted to law school through the Affirmative Action program. At Kingsfield's request, Hart reluctantly becomes the hostile woman's tutor. An influential white alumnus, his son having been rejected despite having better grades than the woman, does his best to change the government's stance on Affirmative Action. | ||||||
| 17 | 17 | "The Apprentice" | William Hopkins | February 20, 1979 | ||
| Kingsfield hires Hart to help his assistant on an important appellate case. The assistant, much sought after and soon to graduate, dumps most of the work on Hart so he can go to job interviews. When Kingsfield finds out, he fires the assistant, leaving Hart to carry the burden alone. | ||||||
| 18 | 18 | "Once More with Feeling" | Marvin Kupfer | William Froug | February 27, 1979 | |
| When Logan spurns the improper advances of a respected law professor (Robert Reed), she is surprised to see the result is a low grade on a test. However, Kingsfield, head of the disciplinary committee, dismisses her complaint because she has no proof. Logan's friends seek out other victims to corroborate her claims. | ||||||
| 19 | 19 | "The Clay Footed Idol" | Larry Elikann | David P. Harmon | March 20, 1979 | |
| Kingsfield has his students form groups to argue both sides of a case of their choice. When Hart's study group selects a case that the professor lost early in his career, they start to question his ethics after they learn that he did not file what appears to them to be a routine appeal. Even Hart has his doubts after a now-prominent attorney who assisted Kingsfield on the case refuses to shed light on the matter. | ||||||
| 20 | 20 | "The Tables Down at Ernie's" | Philip Leacock | Worley Thorne | March 27, 1979 | |
| It looks like Ernie's Tavern, a beloved student hangout, is headed for demolition to make way for a university parking lot, unless Hart can find a way to legally stop it. When he goes to Kingsfield for advice, he discovers that his professor is the counsel for the university. | ||||||
| 21 | 21 | "A Case of Détente" | Robert C. Thompson | David P. Harmon Daniel Benton | April 17, 1979 | |
| Hart falls in love with a Russian gymnast whose team is touring the United States. When it is discovered that she snuck out to spend time with Hart in his dorm room, he is suspended from classes for a month and she is kicked off the team. A law professor (Pernell Roberts) who is teaching Hart's class in Kingsfield's absence tries to address this sticky situation. | ||||||
| 22 | 22 | "Scavenger Hunt" | Jack Bender | John Jay Osborn, Jr. | April 24, 1979 | |
| Kingsfield's annual scavenger hunt is much tougher than usual. The students have only three days to answer at least 75 of 100 fiendishly difficult legal questions in order to pass. It soon becomes clear that this is an impossible task. With Kingsfield stating explicitly that there are no rules, study groups sabotage each other's efforts, hiding or keeping needed reference texts. The dean and the rest of the faculty try to get Kingsfield to cancel the hunt, as it is disrupting the entire university. Hart figures out Kingsfield's hidden agenda and how to pass the test. | ||||||
Season 2 (1983–84)[]
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 | 1 | "Outline Fever" | Jack Bender | John Jay Osborn, Jr. | April 15, 1983 | |
| Ford and Hart get an off-campus apartment. Bell auctions off Hart's outline for contract law, exploiting the fact that Hart was the only one to get an A in Kingsfield's class the previous year. Hart starts a serious relationship with first-year student Connie Lehman, but begins to wonder if she too is after his outline. | ||||||
| 24 | 2 | "Birthday Party" | Jack Bender | John Jay Osborn, Jr. | May 24, 1983 | |
| Kingsfield's friend and former student, now the Attorney General of the United States, asks him if he would accept a nomination to the Supreme Court. Hart decides to celebrate Kingsfield's eightieth birthday, even though it is known that the professor disapproves of such festivities. | ||||||
| 25 | 3 | "Spreading It Thin" | Corey Allen | Lee Kalcheim | June 26, 1983 | |
| Hart has a feeling that a popular law professor has plagiarized an article for the Law Review and tries to prove it, to the detriment of his schoolwork. Lehman suspects he is just jealous because she greatly admires the professor. | ||||||
| 26 | 4 | "Cinderella" | Joseph Pevney | David Sontag | July 15, 1983 | |
| One of the law students, a single mother, struggles to cope when her day care provider is shut down. | ||||||
| 27 | 5 | "Commitments" | Nick Havinga | Joe S. Landon | September 15, 1983 | |
| Hart's relationship with Lehman is strained to the breaking point when she devotes all her time to an extra assignment from Kingsfield. After a few weeks, Hart has a one-night stand with a guitarist/singer, but immediately realizes he has made a big mistake and reconciles with Lehman. Bell, as dorm adviser, ignores pleas for help from a first-year student (David Caruso). | ||||||
| 28 | 6 | "Plague of Locusts" | Joseph Pevney | John Jay Osborn, Jr. | October 26, 1983 | |
| Recruiters descend on the campus, much to Kingsfield's irritation, offering summer employment to promising students. Hart, at the top of his class, is inundated with offers, particularly from two very different law firms. Ford has his own tough decision to make when he learns that his father (Paul Burke) is breaking the school's recruiting rules. Bell despairs of landing a job. | ||||||
| 29 | 7 | "Snow" | Jack Bender | John Jay Osborn, Jr. | November 22, 1983 | |
| Kingsfield gets Gerald Golden to assist him on an important brief. When Golden becomes seriously ill, Shaw takes over his Law Review duties, while Hart takes on the brief. Determined to make his mark, Shaw insists Hart use a brand new computer terminal. When he loses all his work to a power outage the night before it is needed, Hart's friends take him in search of a computer "wonk" (expert) to try to retrieve the document. | ||||||
| 30 | 8 | "Mrs. Hart" | Corey Allen | John Jay Osborn, Jr. | May 22, 1984 | |
| Hart asks Connie to marry him. However, when she is offered a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to study in England, she has to make an agonizing choice. After Bell refuses to allow a weekend dorm party, a resourceful student takes revenge with a series of pranks. | ||||||
| 31 | 9 | "Tempest in a Pothole" | Mark Cullingham | Peter Dixon | May 29, 1984 | |
| Bell falls from his bicycle and breaks his arm when he runs over a pothole. With his friends egging him on, he reluctantly sues the city. In his desperation, he has to subpoena Professor Kingsfield, the only witness. Meanwhile, Mrs. Nottingham, Kingsfield's secretary, feels unappreciated for her more than 30 years of service and accepts a promotion to the dean's office. | ||||||
| 32 | 10 | "Labor of Love" | Jack Bender | Paul Eric Myers Judy Merl | June 5, 1984 | |
| It is spring, and love is in the air. Hart drags workaholic Golden away to Ernie's Tavern for a drink, where they meet two women on break from another university. Golden is particularly smitten, but has to decide whether his top priority is romance or his career. Meanwhile, Ford likes Hart's new acquaintance as much as he does. Bell has to set up a lonely student with a date so the rest of the dorm can get some rest. | ||||||
| 33 | 11 | "Burden of Proof" | Corey Allen | Paul L. Ehrmann | June 12, 1984 | |
| As an intern for the overworked public defender (Gregory Sierra), Hart is assigned to defend the man who mugged Professor Kingsfield. | ||||||
| 34 | 12 | "War of the Wonks" "Machine" | Arthur Allan Seidelman | John Jay Osborn, Jr. | June 19, 1984 | |
| A minor quarrel between Golden and an engineering student over a parking space fans simmering hostilities between the law and engineering students. Golden's car is disassembled and rebuilt in the Law Review basement office. Pressure on Soloway and his wonk girlfriend to extract information from each other by their respective groups threatens their relationship. After top students Rita Harriman and Hart are both defeated in a law contest by a revolutionary computer program designed by a Nobel Prize winner, Professor Kingsfield becomes interested and enters the fray. | ||||||
| 35 | 13 | "Limits" | Jack Bender | Robert Lewin | June 26, 1984 | |
| Ford tries to stop classmates who want to petition for the replacement of a longtime professor (David Opatoshu) they suspect is showing signs of senility. Ford has his own painful memories of his aging grandfather being dropped from the family law firm by his father. Hart tries to develop a better relationship with his ultra-competitive (and beautiful) Law Review rival, Harriman. | ||||||
| 36 | 14 | "Hart Goes Home" | Jack Bender | Joe S. Landon | July 10, 1984 | |
| Hart goes home for his younger sister's wedding after handing in his research for Kingsfield's amicus brief for the United States Supreme Court. However, a new court decision makes a major rewrite necessary. It is assigned to Harriman in Hart's absence. She is forced to consult with Hart on the phone for hours, straining his relations with his sister and his best friend. | ||||||
| 37 | 15 | "Judgment Day" "Tenure" | Nick Havinga | Paul L. Ehrmann Marshall Goldberg | July 17, 1984 | |
| An associate law professor is a brilliant teacher, but his scholarly publications are scanty, endangering his bid for tenure. Golden steps in to assist him in writing an article for the Law Review, but Hart questions if Golden is doing too much. Kiernan nurses a sick Bell over the objections of her study group, who avoid her in the days leading up to a major exam out of fear of catching the illness. | ||||||
| 38 | 16 | "My Dinner with Kingsfield" | Corey Allen | Lee Kalcheim | July 24, 1984 | |
| When Kingsfield's car gets stuck in front of Hart's apartment during a major snowstorm, Hart has an unexpected dinner guest. | ||||||
| 39 | 17 | "The Advocates" | Jack Bender | Jack Bender | August 7, 1984 | |
| Professors Kingsfield and Reese clash over funding for the latter's unconventional course, which teaches courtroom tactics and presentation using video taping. When Hart and his nemesis Harriman are chosen as two of the finalists to represent their school in a national moot court contest, Kiernan advises him that he is too stiff. Hart enrolls in Reese's class, only to find Harriman there as well. Bell takes bets on the outcome. Reese helps Vivian Conway overcome her trouble expressing herself in Kingsfield's class to demonstrate the utility of his course. | ||||||
| 40 | 18 | "Not Prince Hamlet" "Rashomon" | Lynn Roth | Lee Kalcheim | August 14, 1984 | |
| When Marshall Weatherly takes his own life after flunking Kingsfield's test, his grieving lawyer father seeks out Marshall's friends to try to figure out why. He learns that his white son was seriously involved with the African-American Conway, but was afraid to tell him. He also speaks with Kiernan, Bell, and Hart, the last people to see his son, trying to decipher Marshall's cryptic suicide message: "Not Prince Hamlet". Finally, Kingsfield recognizes the quotation. Each person the father interviews has a different viewpoint of the same scene, revisited over and over again in flashbacks (a technique notably used in the film Rashomon). | ||||||
| 41 | 19 | "Billy Pierce" | Corey Allen | Max Eisenberg | August 21, 1984 | |
| Nervous first-year students prepare for Kingsfield's exam, among them Billy Pierce (Lynn Swann), a struggling, famous ex-football player. A thief makes off with a copy of the test undetected the night before. Bell tutors Kiernan on the wrong subjects, with disastrous results. She gets a D, while others, including Pierce, get suspiciously high marks. When the theft is discovered, Bell investigates, but is unable to solve the mystery, so a disappointed Kingsfield has no choice but to discard the grades, much to Kiernan's relief. | ||||||
Season 3 (1985)[]
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 42 | 1 | "Decisions: Part 1" | Ralph Senensky | John Jay Osborn, Jr. | May 11, 1985 | |
| Golden is about to graduate. He must decide whether he really wants to become a Supreme Court law clerk or a litigator. He also has to recommend his successor as president of Law Review. Hart is ambivalent about competing for the job. Ford's younger brother Tom, with whom he has a lifelong rivalry, decides where he will go to law school. Professor Kingsfield is asked to persuade the retiring head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (Diana Douglas) to join the faculty. | ||||||
| 43 | 2 | "Decisions: Part 2" | Ralph Senensky | John Jay Osborn, Jr. | May 11, 1985 | |
| Hart, as the new president of Law Review, decides to take an innovative new approach for his first issue, which proves to be unpopular with his staff. Kingsfield also requests he include an article on a tax case which does not fit in with everything else. Hart's determination pays off, and Kingsfield praises the issue. Meanwhile, Ford has to adjust to the idea that his brother is now attending the same law school. | ||||||
| 44 | 3 | "Pressure" | Alf Kjellin | Irving Pearlberg | June 29, 1985 | |
| A student falls asleep the night before a paper is due. He punches his professor when he is denied an extra day, and is permanently expelled. Tom launches an appeal before the disciplinary committee, headed by Kingsfield, using a defense of temporary insanity. While the appeal is denied, the student is given the right to re-apply for admission in three years. Rose dates Soloway's visiting father. | ||||||
| 45 | 4 | "Laura's Struggle" | Sharron Miller | Joe S. Landon | July 6, 1985 | |
| To cope with the increased workload after joining the Law Review staff, Laura Kiernan begins taking pills, only to become dependent on them. Hart has to make a painful decision when her work is substandard. Bell, who is attracted to her, tries to help, but is rebuffed. She finally admits that she has a problem and asks for help. | ||||||
| 46 | 5 | "Security" | Ernest A. Losso | Marshall Goldberg | July 13, 1985 | |
| Hart decides to invite highly distinguished lawyer and legendary Law Review president Jeremy Brooks (John Randolph) to be the keynote speaker at a prestigious banquet. However, Hart discovers that Brooks is retired and uses a wheelchair, due to a stroke, and has been impoverished by medical costs incurred by his late wife. Hart, his pals and Brooks's old friend Kingsfield battle the bureaucracy over Medicare benefits for him. Brooks's pride makes him resent their efforts, but Kingsfield argues that it will benefit many other people in his position, and Brooks becomes actively involved. | ||||||
| 47 | 6 | "Free Advice" | Gilbert Moses | Marley Sims, Stephen Schneck | July 20, 1985 | |
| Tom casually gives some free legal advice to an auto mechanic (John Goodman), which is illegal for law students. The bad advice gets the mechanic evicted, whereupon he gets an opportunistic district attorney to press charges, which could end Tom's legal career. Hart gets Golden to defend Tom. | ||||||
| 48 | 7 | "The Day Kingsfield Missed Class" | Ralph Senensky | Bruce Franklin Singer, Max Eisenberg | July 27, 1985 | |
| Kingsfield stays away from the campus for an entire day without notifying anyone to teach his students about the concept of breach of contract in an unorthodox way. He does not count on a potential major donor to the school showing up a week early to see him, but everything works out in the end. | ||||||
| 49 | 8 | "The Source" | Georg Stanford Brown | Paul L. Ehrmann | August 10, 1985 | |
| A former law student, now a law clerk for a liberal state supreme court justice, tells a Law Review staffer that his boss is voting the way the conservative governor wants in close cases in return for his appointment. Kingsfield vetoes publishing Hart's article about it in Law Review because the source insists on remaining anonymous. Then the justice casts the deciding vote on a death penalty case. | ||||||
| 50 | 9 | "The Choice" | Ralph Senensky | Paul Eric Myers, Judy Merl | August 17, 1985 | |
| Ford's girlfriend discovers she is pregnant. She decides to get an abortion, to avoid missing school and losing her scholarship, but he wants a say in the decision. Some of the law students become uneasy when they are invited to socialize with the faculty at a tea. | ||||||
| 51 | 10 | "It's Only a Show" | Lynn Roth | Lee Kalcheim | August 24, 1985 | |
| Bell takes charge of an annual variety show put on by the law students after one more-qualified person flunks out and another is injured. Laura and Martin Zeiss become romantically involved as they rehearse a comedy skit. Meanwhile, Kingsfield flies to Los Angeles. On the night of the show, Soloway cannot sing the song he wrote, due to over practicing, so Rose takes his place and is a hit. Laura breaks up with Zeiss when he becomes jealous of Rose's success. With a shortage of acts, Bell has to do his impersonation of Kingsfield, unaware until too late that the professor has returned and is in the audience. | ||||||
| 52 | 11 | "The Big D" | Ralph Senensky | September 3, 1985 | ||
| Rose is stunned and upset when Arnie, her dermatologist husband (Herb Edelman) of 25 years (and three daughters), files for divorce during their trial separation. The law students band together to assist her in representing herself in the proceedings. They discover that Arnie has severely undervalued his declared assets. | ||||||
| 53 | 12 | "Lasting Impressions" | John Herzfeld | Mann Rubin | September 10, 1985 | |
| The senior partner of Golden's law firm brings him aboard a major libel suit on behalf of John Cromwell (William Schallert), an antisemitic client, when the partner's associate undergoes surgery. It is an important assignment for someone as junior as Golden, but Cromwell complains that he is too pushy and unlikable for the jury and wants him off the case. A popular janitor (Scatman Crothers) is eager to enjoy his retirement, but he finds himself missing the students and faculty of the university. Laura and Ford realize his pride will not let him ask for his job back ... without some maneuvering on their part. | ||||||
Season 4 (1986)[]
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 54 | 1 | "A Wounded Hart" | Ralph Senensky | Eric Cohen | June 28, 1986 | |
| Harriman suffers two blows to her psyche. First, her long-distance boyfriend shows up unexpectedly and tells her he is marrying someone else. Then Kingsfield agrees with Hart that her note for Law Review is inadequate. Vulnerable, she has a one-night stand with Hart. He is bothered when he discovers that the encounter means more to him than it does to her. Meanwhile, Soloway has insomnia, so he tries therapy. Under hypnosis, he believes he is the reincarnation of St. Thomas More, but he had merely seen the movie A Man for All Seasons recently. | ||||||
| 55 | 2 | "Mistaken Identity" | James Stephens | Stephen Schneck | July 5, 1986 | |
| Ford is falsely arrested and spends several days in jail before finally being released. His wallet was stolen a few weeks ago, and somebody must have used his ID. The experience makes him question whether he wants to be a lawyer and part of what he sees as an unjust system. | ||||||
| 56 | 3 | "Honor" | John Herzfeld | John Jay Osborn, Jr. | July 12, 1986 | |
| Zeiss is upset about not graduating with honors. He finds out that there is a second grading system he was unaware of; in addition to letter grades, there are also numerical ones. Based on the latter, he missed out by the narrowest of margins. After being rejected by a law firm he really wants to work for, he files a lawsuit against the law school over its grading procedures. He loses, but Kingsfield contacts the recruiter, a former student of his, and Zeiss is offered a job. | ||||||
| 57 | 4 | "Suppressed Desires" | Lynn Roth | Lynne Kelsey | July 19, 1986 | |
| Tensions mount as finals approach. The law students decide to have a "suppressed desire" party, where everyone dresses up in a costume depicting what they wanted to be in life, just to relieve the pressure. Laura is having second thoughts about becoming a lawyer. A chance encounter with an art professor (Theodore Bikel) and an open art contest (in which she takes third place) reawakens her interest in that area. | ||||||
| 58 | 5 | "Graduation: Part 1" | Ralph Senensky | Joe S. Landon | August 9, 1986 | |
| The soon-to-be graduates ponder their futures after law school. Hart is weighing working for a private firm or accepting a federal court clerkship when Professor Tyler approaches him with a third option: applying for a faculty opening. Kingsfield opposes his nomination because he feels Hart lacks the experience necessary, and ultimately prevails. Bell, after numerous rejections, finally gets a job offer, only to have the firm break up. Later, however, one of the former partners hires him. Laura tells Hart that she will not return for her third year; she is going to be an artist. Tom and Rose's study group breaks up due to the cutthroat nature of another member. Hart gives the commencement speech. | ||||||
| 59 | 6 | "Graduation: Part 2" | Ralph Senensky | Joe S. Landon | August 9, 1986 | |
| See Part 1 above. | ||||||
References[]
- ^ DVD release info Archived 2011-09-14 at the Wayback Machine at TVShowsOnDVD.com
- ^ Jump up to: a b c The Paper Chase at IMDb
Categories:
- Lists of American drama television series episodes