IS BRINGING SHATNER & SPADER TO OUR LIVING ROOMS THANKSWORTHY?

Kelleyvision:
The Rise and Fall and Rise Of TV's David E. Kelley (Nicholas Stix, October 16, 2004, A Different Drummer)

A year or two ago, Chi McBride, then starring in the Fox TV series Boston Public (2001-2004), said that we needed a new phrase to describe the world of Boston Public creator-producer-writer, David E. Kelley: “Kelleyvision.” Though McBride meant the term as a compliment, it is a double-edged sword. “Kelleyvision” embraces the absurd, the magical, and the love of love. Unfortunately, it also embraces the politically correct, hatred of the law, talking heads drama, the limited attention span of the MTV generation and the reduction of even the absurd and the magical to paint-by-the-numbers hackery.

Well, Kelleyvision is back. October 3 saw the premiere of Kelley’s newest show, on ABC at 10 p.m. Sundays. Boston Legal (an earlier title was Fleet Street) stars James Spader and William Shatner. A spin-off of The Practice (1997-2004), Boston Legal is the story of relatively new attorney “Alan Shore,” an acerbic, effete, self-loathing, apparently amoral saint in sinner’s clothing, who works in a high-powered, Boston law firm specializing in civil cases. Playing “Alan” with a sardonic, supercilious mien, James Spader does a pretty fair job, channeling the spirit of Clifton Webb. The firm is run by the flamboyant, narcissistic, yet irresistible “Denny Crane” (Shatner). Crane likes to say, portentously, “Denny Crane,” as if his mere name carried weight – which it does. Crane’s looniness and Shore’s criminality (blackmailing opponents) in the pursuit of winning cases for deserving clients are yet two more variations on Kelley’s theme, “The law is an ass.”

Boston Legal is the third series Kelley has set in a Boston law office. (Boston Public was set in a Boston high school.) I wonder if the title Boston Legal is an in-joke, since every one of Kelley’s Boston lawyer shows could have been called, Boston Law. (Or Hollywood Law, since not only are they all shot at Kelley’s Manhattan Beach, California studios, but none has any Boston flavor.)

The creator-producer-writer of The Practice, Ally McBeal (1997-2002), Picket Fences (1992-1996) and Boston Public, among the eleven shows he has written and/or produced and/or created, and winner of nine Emmy awards, David E. Kelley is a TV legend. While only 48 years old, Kelley already belongs to the pantheon of broadcast TV drama writer-producers, along with such luminaries as Reginald Rose (12 Angry Men, The Defenders); John Hawkesworth. (Upstairs, Downstairs); Richard Levinson and William Link (Columbo); Steven Bochco and David Milch (Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue); Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz (Family, thirtysomething, Once and Again); Joshua Brand and John Falsey (St. Elsewhere); William Broyles Jr., John Wells, and John Sacret-Young (China Beach); Tom Fontana (St. Elsewhere, Homicide: Life on the Street); Cris Carter (Millennium); Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing); and the gold standard, Rod Serling (The Twilight Zone, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Patterns, The Rack, and every anthology drama series on 1950s’ and early 1960s’ TV).

For our money, he should have quit after the first season of LA Law.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 19, 2004 8:05 PM