Lifetime’s court drama ambitious, but lacking

Already on its Sunday night lineup of original series, Lifetime features a medical drama (“Strong Medicine”) and a police drama (“The Division”). So “For the People,” debuting at 10 p.m. Sunday, was the logical next step – a courtroom drama.

The new series, starring Lea Thompson and Debbi Morgan, is ambitious. Set in the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, “For the People” attempts to combine political ideologies, the cultural fabric of the City of Angels, hot-button issues, and women in power both at work and at home. While juggling so much, it’s not unexpected that the show occasionally drops the ball.

Thompson (“Caroline in the City”) stars as Camille Paris, a liberal chief deputy district attorney who expects to be out on the street when Lora Gibson, a conservative black woman, is elected district attorney. Camille spends her time outside of court packing for her inevitable move to private practice.

It’s rocky going early on, as Lora and her conservative appointees, led by Anita Lopez (Cecilia Suarez), an ambitious Latino head prosecuting attorney, clash philosophically with Camille and the existing staff.

Still, the two strong women find room to compromise. They agree not to seek the death penalty for the killer of a gay man in exchange for his testimony against the radio commentator whose gay bashing incited the murder. They use the cocaine-addicted wife of a drug kingpin to bring him down instead of sending her away on a third-strike violation.

Lora and Camille discover they have more in common than that separates them. So they must learn whether they can work together, despite their being at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.

The problem is that, unlike the characters on “Any Day Now” which it replaces, “For the People” lacks characters whom viewers can root for. The debut episode shows only the stoic game faces of its leads, without delving into their back story much. For a Lifetime series, it’s not very touchy-feely.

For “For the People” to succeed, it has to show more of the women behind the power suits. It needs to offer something beyond that which the dozens of existing courtroom dramas already do, some quite effectively. Otherwise, it will be dismissed by viewers for insufficient grounds to watch.