Friday

Here's how to fix
'Boston Public'

David E. Kelley, you there? Now you listen up.

By Ed Robertson

   It’s been a rough year for David E. Kelley.
   First, Fox puts “Ally McBeal” out to pasture, then jettisons “girls club,” Kelley’s much-ballyhooed replacement for “Ally,” after only two airings. Then, after failing to secure a new licensing deal with ABC for “The Practice,” Kelley finds that show moved from its cushy home on Sundays to a much weaker slot on Mondays. After being pummeled since January by “Everyone Loves Raymond” and “Joe Millionaire,” “The Practice” is reportedly on the brink of cancellation.
   Could it be that the man who pushed the envelope in television more than any other producer has finally pushed too far?
   Not only has the producer and writing whiz lost his touch with the networks, he has apparently lost touch with viewers as well. Audience numbers for Kelley’s best series, “Boston Public” (now in its third season on Fox), were down considerably from last year until "Joe Millionaire" debuted in winter and gave it a bit of a lift.
   What’s worse, the eight-time Emmy winner has become so absorbed with infusing his shows with his trademark quirks and peculiar obsessions, he seems to have lost sight of what made them audience favorites in the first place.
   That has clearly become the case with “Boston Public.” Once a thought-provoking, if slightly over the top, portrayal of high school life from the teacher’s perspective, “Public” has become increasingly cartoonish this season, relying far too much on stunt casting (Tamyra Gray from “American Idol,” Joey McIntyre from New Kids on the Block), head-scratching story lines (the school’s principal is arraigned for murder without a shred of evidence against him), and other Kelleyesque gimmicks (faculty members duking it out with each other, vice-principals dating “Hook Ladies”) that have ultimately pushed viewers’ patience to the limit.
   History suggests that if Kelley doesn’t take heed and fix the problem, “Boston” could be pushed out of prime time — and Kelley soon along with it.
   Granted, Kelley is hardly the first producer in television guilty of pushing the envelope. Norman Lear, among others, did that all the time throughout the ‘70s, with “All in the Family” and “Maude.” Robert Altman made a name for himself through his innovative camera work on the ‘60s war drama “Combat.” Roy Huggins poked fun at the traditional stalwart Western hero in “Maverick,” then gave private eyes the same treatment in “The Rockford Files.”
   But the key to pushing the envelope, or playing with any convention in television, is to do so with restraint. Huggins, for example, delighted in letting Maverick’s mercenary nature occasionally do him in, often to hilarious effect. He just made sure not to do it every single episode, knowing full well the audience was bound to grow tired of watching the same thing week in and week out.
   Indeed, that’s what happened to “Rockford Files” after Huggins handed the show over to his protégé, Stephen J. Cannell, back in 1975. Cannell had so much fun at Rockford’s expense, he forgot what Huggins knew all along — that Rockford was supposed to be smarter than anyone else. That wasn’t the case in the second season (Cannell’s first as producer), which played Rockford for a fool every week, even at the hands of his own friends.
   Sure enough, the audience grew tired fast. Six weeks into the second season, ratings for “Rockford” dropped nearly 20 percent. Though Cannell worked hard to fix the problem, those viewers who had abandoned the show never returned.
   Perhaps because Fox has given Kelley such a free reign over the years, that lesson apparently hasn’t sunk in yet. The network, after all, milked five seasons out of “Ally McBeal,” despite the fact that its weekly formula of dancing babies, hallucinating lawyers and Barry White ensemble numbers had already grown stale by the end of season two.
   On the other hand, Fox has been nowhere near as patient with Kelley this year. Besides unceremoniously dumping “girls club,” the network has kept “Boston” on a short leash once the ratings started to dip. After averaging a respectable 10.1 share heading into the fall, that figure is down to about an 8.0 share — a full 20 percent drop since the season began in November.
   Not coincidentally, Fox has pre-empted “Boston” an inordinate number of times since January, often bumping it to squeeze extra hours out of reality ratings juggernauts “Joe Millionaire” and, as we saw earlier this week, “American Idol.”
   Assuming the network gives him the chance at a fourth season, here’s what Kelley needs to do in order to fix “Boston Public.”
   (1) Stop resting on your laurels and go back to telling decent stories. Kelley’s efforts on “L.A. Law” and “Picket Fences” earned him a reputation as a writer/producer for whom actors want to perform. That’s what led Jeri Ryan to “Boston” on the heels of “Star Trek: Voyager,” and presumably that’s what brought McIntyre and Gray on the show as well.
    Problem is, the material Kelley has given his actors on “Boston” this year has, for the most part, ranged from execrable to unbelievable. In recent weeks, for example, the series has resorted to such antics as vice principal Guber (Anthony Heald) going “undercover” to thwart a student cheating ring by donning a ridiculous Amish disguise. In the same story arc, a bizarre “romance” ensues between big woman Marla Hendricks (Loretta Devine) and a tiny nerd played by Verne Troyer, a.k.a. Mini-Me in the “Austin Powers” movies.
    As if that weren’t enough, in the May 12 season finale (featuring Grammy winner Whitney Houston), a student writes a letter to Houston asking her to be his prom date. In a plot twist straight out of “The Brady Bunch,” the pop diva naturally says yes. Series lead Chi McBride, for one, deserves to work with much better material than that.
   (2) Take Ronnie Cooke, please. Ryan may be easy on the eyes, but the character she plays on the show (Cooke) is completely laughable. Cooke, an attorney by trade, quit her six-figure-a-year, partner-track job on a whim to become a teacher, despite having no experience in the classroom — nor, for that matter, any aptitude or desire for teaching in the first place.
   To his credit, Kelley seems to have recognized the problem with that concept, and has since moved Cooke out of the classroom and into an administrative position (she’s now assistant vice-principal). Nevertheless, “Boston” took a big hit in the credibility department from which it has yet to completely recover. For the sake of the show, please let Ronnie go.
    (3) Bring back Harry Senate. Harry may have exhibited chronic bad judgment, but he always had noble intentions. That made his antics (be it firing a gun in his classroom, initiating his ill-fated “Suicide Club,” or staging a fist fight between students) acceptable to the audience, because they knew he truly cared about his students ... and about teaching.
   Nicky Katt's brooding portrayal easily made Harry the most interesting character of the series. When Katt left “Boston” at the beginning of this season, he took much of the show's heart with him. Fortunately for “Boston,” the door is open for Katt to return next season, assuming “next season” exists.
   If that’s the case, let’s see if Kelley can learn from history and rein himself in, for the good of the show.

-Ed Robertson is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area who covers television.

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