This wonderful series veered slightly from the book, but mostly in ways necessary to make an ongoing TV show. The tone, the characterization, the feel were all right on target. The casting was superb. Although Elmore Leonard pictured Harry Dean Stanton to play the judge, Beau Bridges brought so much verve and energy to the part it became difficult to imagine anybody else in the role. Liz Vassey was excellent, and the supporting cast and guest stars pulled the whole thing together.Production values were very high, and writing and direction top-notch. Ordinary and eccentric people, getting on with the day to day business of living -- or not -- in some backwater of Florida isn't something we see every day on TV, and credit is due the producers for going out of their way to get this series on the air. There was a higher ratio of comedy to drama than is usual in a one hour show, and this may have scared the network. Is ABC so crammed with exciting, original, well-written, well-produced programming that it could afford to let this one get away?Only a few episodes were aired, and, alas, no other network picked it up; one might imagine that Showtime or HBO, with their commitment to original programming might have been interested.It's interesting to note how well Barry Sonnenfeld captured the spirit of Elmore Leonard's book in this series, and how poorly he captured the spirit of "The Wild Wild West" TV series in his ghastly, unbelievably bad film version.

This show was great, it was beautifully witty and it had a lot of heart. It's a comedy that treads the edge of convention. Each character had an individual and unique impact on the individual stories as well as on each other's way of seeing and doing things. There was a common progression of character development from episode to episode and I was looking forward to seeing how each character would change and adapt, which is why I was so very sad when it was canceled. It didn't run long enough to make it to syndication but hopefully ABC will run the episodes again one summer or something. It was truly an excellent show and one that's worth seeing if you ever get the chance.

The pilot was off-the-wall and bizarre. I'm looking forward to more shows. ABC only shot 7 episodes. Let's let them know we want more!

I did not like this show at all. I could barely stay awake, the plot line is un-funny. I really don't know how they are going to continue. If the pilot was this bad, and they told everyting. I just don't know what is going to happen in the next episodes. 2 words......NOT FUNNY!