The Paper Chase
The Choice
TV Flash files “The Choice” as a desk essential hour — The Paper Chase (1978–1979) on CBS, season 3, episode 1, aired 1985-04-19, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S03E01: listed hour 42 of 58 in the The Paper Chase guide, first listed hour of season 3. It aired 1985-04-19 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Billy Pierce” (S02E19). Next is “The Source” (S03E02).
Essential hour: “The Choice”. The Choice is a later-season door named as a fork. Cable-and-PBS continuation: the CBS cancellation already history, the Socratic duel still the only sport that mattered.
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Choice sit in the The Paper Chase guide?
S03E01 is listed hour 42 of 58 — first listed hour of season 3, season 3 episode 1.
When did The Paper Chase S03E01 air?
The Choice aired 1985-04-19 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Film first or the series?
Either. The series adapts the novel and 1973 film; Houseman reprises Kingsfield. Television is the Socratic firing squad in weekly form.
In the series
Why this series still plays
John Houseman's Professor Kingsfield turns Harvard Law into blood sport, and a generation of pre-law kids took notes. Short CBS life, long PBS and cable afterlife, unforgettable theme. Campus prestige drama that treats a seminar like a duel: would you survive the Socratic firing squad?
The gaze arrives before the diploma. CBS, 1978–1979: first-year Harvard Law students scramble under the withering look of contracts legend Professor Kingsfield. James Bridges's The Paper Chase, based on the novel and 1973 film, puts John Houseman in an Oscar-to-TV authority figure that terrified a generation of pre-law kids. James Stephens's James T. Hart, Tom Fitzsimmons's Franklin Ford III, James Keane's Willis Bell take the Socratic fire. *Tweed as a silhouette, a seminar as a duel, a theme that is a press…
Filed against
- John Houseman as Professor Charles Kingsfield
John Houseman’s Professor Charles Kingsfield turned The Paper Chase into Socratic blood sport — Harvard Law as a duel, a generation of pre-law kids taking notes, short CBS life and a long PBS and cable afterlife. Unforgettable theme,…
- James Stephens as James T. Hart
James Stephens’s James T. Hart took The Paper Chase’s Socratic firing line as a vocation — Harvard Law, Kingsfield as blood sport, 1970s campus prestige with a theme that outlived the CBS run. Student as the camera’s dare. TV Flash files…
- Tom Fitzsimmons as Franklin Ford III
Tom Fitzsimmons sat the Harvard Law blood sport as Franklin Ford III on The Paper Chase — John Houseman’s Professor Kingsfield turning seminar into duel, a short CBS life with a long PBS and cable afterlife. Pre-law kids took notes; the…
- James Keane as Willis Bell
James Keane’s Willis Bell sat The Paper Chase like a study group with bruises — Harvard Law as blood sport, John Houseman’s Kingsfield firing Socratic rounds, 1970s campus prestige that treated a seminar as a duel. TV Flash files him as…