Rumpole of the Bailey/YMMV

Rumpole of the Bailey

 * Genius Bonus: Rumpole peppers his conversations and speeches with snippets of poetry and more allusions to literature than you can shake a stick at. Attentive viewers will find everything from Shakespeare to Wordsworth to The Scarlet Pimpernel (and that twice in the same scene).
 * Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The show became a big hit with American PBS viewers when it was packaged as part of that network's Masterpiece Theatre spinoff Mystery!.
 * Magnificent Bastard: Rumpole develops into one of these over time.
 * What an Idiot: Quite a few people in Chambers--not to mention most of the judges--but Rumpole frequently has to extricate Sam Ballard and Claude Erskine-Brown from messes of their own making.