It’s been a long while since the USA Network last premiered an original drama. (Five years, to be precise, since the one-and-done “Briarpatch.” ) A lot has happened since — so much that, in the time between being ordered to series and making it to air, an attempt to revive the channel’s heyday has been left marooned by circumstances beyond its control. “ The Rainmaker ,” a John Grisham adaptation that follows in the footsteps of the 1997 Francis Ford Coppola film, seems designed to bring back the “blue sky” brand that defined the network in the 2000s. Based on its first five episodes, the legal drama is unlikely to succeed, either on its own terms or in light of recent developments.

A pocket history of USA goes something like this: the blue sky-era of breezy procedurals and its attend

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