Episode 857: MA Dissertation?

Harry's Law has been crossed off my list of shows to watch, after delivering a second episode that felt like it was just more of the same, compared to last week. We had the slightly amusing subplot with the other lawyer in Harry's ramshackle practice, and Harry's impassioned closing argument that was just on the wrong side of inspirational for a cynical modern audience. I don't like my TV characters lecturing me, even when there's a modicum of truth to what they're spouting. The ratings have been good though, so clearly, a lot of Americans want to watch crazily happy endings, because that's really what this show is all about. It's so predictably happy, it hurts. Plus the characters are all quite uninteresting. Disappointing, given that this series comes form David E. Kelley. In other news, I may just have decided on a dissertation topic for next year. I know I've been saying that I wasn't going to do one, but thinking years ahead to when I want to apply for a PhD, it would be great to have had the training to write a sustained piece of academic writing, which would also be a useful writing sample to show. So tentatively, I'm planning to write on the Merlion and how the varying responses to it of Singaporean poets reflects wider shifts in their thematic concerns that are then tied to questions of identity construction (and fragmentation). I think that sounds focused enough to be manageable, yet offering enough scope for 16 000 words to explore.