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Raising the Bar (2008 TV series)

American legal television drama

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ1763875
Source-derived summary

Raising the Bar is an American legal drama created by Steven Bochco and David Feige that ran on TNT from September 1, 2008, to December 24, 2009.

Plot

Idealistic public defender Jerry Kellerman does whatever it takes to assist the helpless and disenfranchised, which often leads to clashes in the courtroom presided over by Judge Trudy Kessler, a hard-liner hoping to become the city's next district attorney. Jerry has many clashes with both law enforcement and the assistant district attorneys (ADAs) such as Michelle Ernhardt, the beautiful and occasionally devious attorney with whom he has had a turbulent secret fling.

Cast and characters

Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Jerry Kellerman

Gloria Reuben as Rosalind Whitman

Jane Kaczmarek as Trudy Kessler

Melissa Sagemiller as Michelle Earnhardt

Jonathan Scarfe as Charlie Sagansky

J. August Richards as Marcus McGrath

Currie Graham as Nick Balco

Teddy Sears as Richard Patrick Woolsley

Natalia Cigliuti as Roberta "Bobbi" Gilardi

Recurring

Stacy Hall as Vince Culp

Jon Polito as Judge Dominick Ventimigla

Paul Joyner as Assistant District Attorney

John Michael Higgins as Judge Albert Farnsworth

Heath Freeman as Gavin Dillon

Angel Oquendo as Carlos

Octavia Spencer as Arvina Watkins

Max Greenfield as David Steinberg

Josh Randall as Tim Porter

Wilson Cruz as Rafael de la Cruz

Production

Raising the Bar was originally announced to be joining TNT as a new series in January 2008. It came to TNT through ABC Studios and Steven Bochco served as executive producer, with Jesse Bochco as co-executive producer and David Feige as supervising producer. After completing its first season of 10 hour-long episodes in November 2008, the series was renewed for a 15-episode second season, which premiered on Monday June 8, 2009, at 10 p.m. Eastern Time/9 p.m. Central Time. The show was canceled after season 2.

Episodes

Season 1 (2008)

Season 2 (2009)

Cancellation

TNT confirmed to E!

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Raising the Bar (2008 TV series)” is american legal television drama. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Raising, series and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2008, 2009—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Raising, series and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american legal television drama” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1763875. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2008 and 2009.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Raising the Bar (2008 TV series)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Raising the Bar (2008 TV series) primary sources, Raising the Bar (2008 TV series) archive and Raising research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Raising the Bar (2008 TV series)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.