Bull is loosely based on (and co-written by) the early life and career of Dr Phil McGraw. Michael Weatherly + Dr Phil = good watching for NCIS, Dr Phil, and general TV fans.
As a trial analyst, Bull and his team use more than the law to help people win cases, they use ‘psychology, neuro linguistics, demographics’, etc. They get to know every juror ‘down to their neurons’. That’s what all these screens are for. Dr Bull watches…
And analyses...
Everyone.
With three degrees in psychology and lots of personal data on jurors, Dr Bull is very good at reading people. Spooky good. It’s as though jurors are just telling him everything he needs to know, from the box, throughout the trial.
He also has a team of specialists helping him out. An ex-cop, an illegal hacker, a lawyer, and someone who used to work for the Department of Homeland Security. You can gauge their loyalty and competence by the way they all look down on the client (the two blokes with stiff upper lips).
And that brings us to Bull’s rules, which we suspect are a cheeky little nod to NCIS’s Gibbs, whose rules are world-famous, and innumerable.
For many NCIS fans, it will feel like Dinozzo has grown up, got glasses, and his own team of case-solvers to call him ‘boss’.
He even wears man cardies.
Despite the serious nature of Dr Bull’s reading glasses and man cardigan, it wouldn’t be right to have Michael Weatherly play a role in which he didn’t make wise cracks.
Or attract the ladies.
He's a genius and a joker on the outside, but it's possible he nurses a wounded soul hidden deep within.
Bull offers plenty for older viewers, and younger.
When it comes to the charges laid against it, the jury rules Bull guilty! ... Pleasure.
