A year or two ago, actor Chi McBride, then the star of the Fox TV series Boston Public (2001-2004), said that we needed a new phrase, “Kelleyvision,” to describe the world of Boston Public creator-producer-writer, David E. Kelley. Though McBride meant the term as an unequivocal compliment, it is a double-edged sword. Kelleyvision embraces the absurd, the magical, the love of love, political correctness, 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. Tonight is the premiere of Kelley’s newest show, on ABC at 10 p.m. Boston Legal (originally Fleet Street) stars James Spader and William Shatner. A spin-off of The Practice (1997-2004), Boston Legal is the story of a relatively new attorney (Spader), an acerbic, apparently amoral saint in sinner’s clothing, in a high-powered, Boston law firm specializing in civil cases run by a famous, flamboyant, and possibly mad lawyer (Shatner). This is the third time Kelley has set a series in a Boston law office.

The creator-producer-writer of The Practice and Ally McBeal (1997-2002), Boston Public, the creator and/or writer of eight other shows, and winner of nine Emmy awards, David E. Kelley is a TV legend. While only 48 years old, if he never wrote another script, he’d be part of the pantheon of broadcast TV drama writer-producers with such luminaries as Reginald Rose (12 Angry Men, The Defenders); John Hawkesworth (Upstairs, Downstairs); Richard Levinson & 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, Seven Days in May, The Planet of the Apes, Patterns, The Rack, and every anthology drama series on 1950s’ and early 1960s’ TV).

Kelley trained as a lawyer, and briefly practiced the profession, until he found that he could make much more money writing about the law than practicing it. In 1986, he began working on L.A. Law (1986-1994) as a story editor. L.A. Law producer, writer, and co-creator (with Terry Louise Fisher) Steven Bochco was then the hottest and most powerful producer in TV. Bochco had previously created, produced, and co-written Hill Street Blues (1981-87), a groundbreaking series which with 26 Emmys became the most honored drama in TV history.

After one year, Bochco named the prolific, talented Kelley L.A. Law’s chief writer and executive producer. Though it may no longer seem so, the show was at the time a breakthrough series, in dramatizing not only court cases, but lawyers’ office politics and personal crises, as well. And of course, as it was a Bochco series, there was lots of sex. Kelley won three Emmies for his work on L.A. Law. (If I sound guilty of hype, it is because the brilliance of the 1980s’ Bochco and the mid-1980s’-mid-1990s’ Kelley tests one’s vocabulary.)

L.A. Law, like other Bochco series, was hyped. It pushed the envelope with lesbian kisses, interracial relationships, salty language and over-the-top story lines. But it could also be alternately moving and funny. In what would become yet another trademark Bochco move, the show sought to increase audience share by casting so-so and subpar “non-white” performers (e.g., Jimmy Smits, A. Martinez), a move that has rarely if ever been commercially successful, and has always been dramatic poison. (In recent years, as Bochco’s creative powers have waned, in shows like City of Angels (2000) and the moribund NYPD Blue (1993-2005), politically correct casting, skin, and vulgar language have increasingly been all he has had to offer.)

The problem with pushing the envelope is that other series push back, in what becomes a harm race, to see who can be trashier. Soon enough, what once was cutting edge becomes dull and staid. Today, the harm race has advanced to the point where on cable, the show Six Feet Under mixes pretentiousness, political correctness, constant use of the “f” word and simulated scenes of heterosexual and male homosexual intercourse (which once earned movies X ratings). Six Feet Under passes for “deep” among today’s lefty, nihilist snobs. Perhaps, next year, the sex will no longer be simulated.

The commercial problem with affirmative action casting, is that black folks don’t want to watch series with some black faces; they want to watch series with only black faces, and most white folks don’t want to watch shows they don’t enjoy, just for the sake of feeling morally superior to other white folks.

David E. Kelley has a history of baiting white Christians (he embraces black Christians; apparently, God loves blacks more than He does whites), white owners of legal firearms (in Kelley’s universe, there are no black owners of legal firearms), and conservatives. To which my socialist readers will likely say, “He sounds brilliant,” while my conservative and Republican readers will doubtless respond, “Why would any sensible person want to watch his shows?”

Well, I can’t speak for sensible people, but I will be tuning in because, in addition to it being my job, when Kelley is on his game, he writes scripts and casts episodes that you will remember ten years later. How many people are there in TV about whom you can say that?

And so, as irate as Kelley’s sins make me, I cannot bring myself to despise a man who has brought so much beauty, joy, and pleasure to my life.

And now, it remains to be seen which David E. Kelley will show up tonight.

Copyright 2004 by Nicholas Stix. All rights reserved.
Don't bring around a crowd,
to reign on my parade!