Television

I loved the last season of THE PRACTICE, which pitted amoral lawyer Alan Shore (James Spader) up against the dull, self-righteous, sanctimonious regular characters who survived David E. Kelley’s big cast purge. The last few episodes introduced William Shatner as pompous, egotistical, and perhaps demented lawyer Denny Crane. The episodes were funny, sharp and surprising. I wish I could say the same about the spin-off, BOSTON LEGAL. What made it work last season was the contrast/conflict between the deadly-serious old PRACTICE characters and Spader, who undercut them at every turn. But in this series, everybody is wacky and broad… there’s no one left for Spader to play off of. And without those “serious” characters to ground things, Shatner’s Denny Crane also loses most, if not all, of his comic punch. That said, I thought critic Robert Lloyd summed up the pleasures of watching Spader & Shatner at work…

Spader’s Alan Shore is a kind of happy, unflappable sociopath — perfect qualities for a trial lawyer, one might say — given to dumb smiles, soft-spoken barbs and an unhurried, deliberate way of moving. Whereas most television characters are constructed and played so that you know exactly what they’re thinking as they think it, and what they’re going to do before they do it, Shore (though you can at least expect him to do the right thing in the wrong way) remains enigmatic. By giving up so little, Spader makes him that much more interesting.

Spader’s appeal is peculiarly nonsexual; his real chemistry here is with Shatner. Indeed, there’s something sort of Kirk and Spock about them — Shatner puffed up like a blowfish, Spader deadpan and not quite of this Earth.

Aged an unbelievable 73, Shatner delivers a typically big performance, but one perfectly appropriate to a character who conceives of himself as larger than life. Yet at the same time, it’s his most modest work ever. Shatner has an unusual ability to play off his own pompousness, which makes him extremely likable, and for all kinds of reasons, not the least of them having to do with one’s memories of earlier Shatners, he is a joy to watch — that certain joy of watching the actor and the character at the same time.

I know one reason why ER is slipping in the ratings…

It’s new episodes all feel like reruns. After nine years, or however long the show has been on, every single doctor in the E.R. has been a trauma patient. It’s become ridiculous. This week, they wheeled in not one, but two, critically injured doctors. How often can they play the “oh my god, the patient is Dr. Schmeckle!” beat? It’s bad enough when they play the “oh my god, the patient is Dr. Schmeckle’s brother!” (or mother, or girlfriend, or sister, etc. etc.)

But if that wasn’t bad enough, how many times can they do the “doctors trapped in rising water” bit? Ever since that terrific George Clooney episode in season one or two, they keep rehashing that plot, and variations of it, every season.

It’s time for E.R. to go in for an Extreme Make-Over. It’s become a tired, maudlin, uninspired soap opera… no wonder people are changing the channel.

Cynthia Nixon, who just won an Emmy for her role in SEX IN THE CITY, is spinning off into new sexual territory. She’s involved with a woman now, or so reports the NY Daily News.

Cynthia Nixon is trying a different kind of sex in the city, the Daily News has learned.
For almost 10 months now, the Emmy-winning actress has been dating another woman, sources say.

Back in June of 2003, Nixon split with Danny Mozes, the father of her two children. Last January, according to friends, she began a lesbian relationship.

Right now, Nixon, 38, does not want to be as outspoken as Rosie O’Donnell, the sources say.

But Nixon did not flinch when we asked her yesterday whether she is involved with another woman.

Speaking exclusively with the Daily News, she said, “My private life is private. But at the same time, I have nothing to hide. So what I will say is that I am very happy.”

Word is that Nixon’s partner is not in show business.

I enjoyed the pilot for “Lost,” but I can’t imagine how they are going to sustain the show for 22 episodes, much less five years. I look forward to seeing if they can pull it off. Afterall, they are 48 castaways on an uncharted island thats apparently full of man-eating monsters. How many stories are there? Where can they go? What can do they? The monster bit is bound to get old fast. Figure one castaway munched per episode, and unless another plane crashlands on the island, they are out of cast members after two seasons. Those long-range creative concerns aside… the pilot was great fun to watch, and a lot of people watched it. According to Variety, the pilot scored big numbers:

The J.J. Abrams/Damon Lindelof survival drama, which has generated the best reviews for any program this fall, opened to surprisingly sockosocko numbers for the Alphabet, dominating its timeslot with the best young-adult rating for a drama premiere on any net (excluding spinoffs) in four years. ABC sure could use a breakout drama success, as it hasn’t had a real hit since “The Practice.” “Lost” reps the net’s best start for a drama in 18-49 since “Once and Again””Once And Again” in 1999, and in total viewers since “Murder One” in 1995.

That’s nice, but not very encouraging. Let’s not forget what happened to both “Once and Again” and “Murder One.” They barely survived their first seasons and were cancelled in their second.

According to Zap2it.com, CBS made a significant, symbolic victory last night:

In a much vaunted head-to-head match-up the third season premiere of “Without a Trace” trounced the eleventh season premiere of “ER.” For the first time in the show’s long and esteemed history, an original episode of “ER” lost to another drama in total viewers.

To be fair, though, ER is in its 11th season and has all but one member of its original cast. It’s not surprising that the show is losing some of its ratings power. That said, ER is still one of the highest rated dramas on television… and that it still draws those numbers after so many years and so many cast changes is amazing.

WITHOUT A TRACE is a good show…but you can’t discount the benefits of having CSI, the highest rated drama on television, as your lead in. Think how many comedies survived simply by following FRIENDS, SEINFELD or RAYMOND…and then died when moved elsewhere.

The victory is an important one image-wise for CBS… which for years was considered the nursing home network. CBS has clearly and decisively won its long battle to re-establish itself as the Tiffany network.

There’s a fascinating article in this week’s Entertainment Weekly about CSI, focusing on how the original actors feel about the tense (and ongoing) salary negotiations and the multiple spin-offs. William Petersen is getting $500,000 an episode, Marg Helgenberger is getting $200,000 and George Eads, Gary Dourdan and Jorja Fox are getting $100,000. Only Petersen is happy about the paycheck… but they are all pissed about the spin-offs.

Helgenberger is equally tense: ”One moment you are on something inspired and innovative, and the next minute you are the quasi-blond chick on one of those crime-solving shows,” she says. ”I’m a little bit nauseous from having been force-fed some humble pie.”

The cast, despite the big paycheck, are getting creatively restless as well.

“I get really bored just having to hold the flashlight up higher — which is one of the directions I get.” [Helgenberger says] Petersen, naturally, is even more blunt: ”I try and stay awake, and for me, that’s fresh at this point,” he says sarcastically.

William Rabkin steered me to journalist James Wolcott’s blog and his take on the new season of LAW AND ORDER…

I’m not sure how it does it, but Dennis Farina’s thick black-and-white mop of hair manages to upstage everything around it. As the new detective on Law and Order, replacing Jerry Ohrbach’s venerable Lenny, Farina dominated his first scene on the show just by sticking his head in the door. I’ve liked Farina ever since Crime Story–he has the “up” energy of a slick gambler who’s had a good day–and he got into the swing of L&O so fast and easy that ten minutes into the season debut you were no longer wondering what the loss of Ohrbach might cost the series.

But last night’s season debut also pointed up a chronic problem with L&O that has persisted unaddressed for years, not that it seems to matter (given the show’s durable ratings and franchise status in reruns). Which is: the “Order” half is so much better–wittier, twistier–than the “Law” half. Episode after episode fractures at the finish, leaving you slightly dissastisfied at having invested so much interest in the outcome.

My problem with the show is how linear and obvious the murder investigations have become…and how most of the “twists” come from with-holding clues that should have been revealed in Act One. Last nights episodes, particularly the second one, highlighted these weaknesses. If you saw the episode, they also never explain why the boat crashed, who killed the captain, or what the bottle of booze was doing in the wheelhouse…or did I miss something?

The third season of THE WIRE is premiering tonight and some folks, like the New York Times, are making a big deal out of the fact that mystery novelists George Pelecanos, Richard Price and Dennis Lehane are writing episodes of the show as if it was something, well, novel. It’s not.

Lots of mystery novelists have written for television. Lorenzo Carcatera and Matt Witten wrote for LAW AND ORDER. Peter Lefcourt wrote for BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS and KAREN SISCO. Other novelists who have written episodes, pilots and TV movies include Eric Garcia, Elmore Leonard, Ed McBain, Robert Crais, Ian Rankin, Thomas Perry, James Crumley, Walter Mosley, Ross Thomas, Gar Anthony Haywood, Stephen King, Stuart Kaminsky, Dave Barry, Robert B. Parker, and Michael Connelly, to name just a few.

And that doesn’t count all the novelists who started out as TV writers, among them Sue Grafton, Robert Crais, Lee Child, and Stephen J. Cannell.

Back when I was doing Diagnosis Murder, we hired Paul Bishop and John Sandford to write episodes. Paul wrote three or four for us… but John’s was never shot. He turned in his script shortly before I left the show and the new execs chose to shelve his teleplay.

This note about “accuracy” in fiction was posted by David Montgomery on DorothyL… it gave me a smile, so I thought I’d share it with you:

Something to remember when it comes to truth in fiction…

Montgomery’s Law # 7:
“Everyone is dissatisfied when the subject is their own area of expertise. But no one else cares.”

Lawyers get upset about legal inaccuracies on Law & Order.

Nurses & doctors get peeved by ER.

Cops laugh at NYPD Blue.

As for the rest of the audience, they neither know, nor do they care. Writers should be slaves to the plot, not to the “facts.”

You can find an expanded version of Montgomery’s Rule #7 on his blog… http://crimefiction.blogspot.com/2004/09/truth-in-fiction.html

On the DorothyL digest, a mailing list for mystery fans, someone wrote:

Someone said they couldn’t watch Hawaii because they lived there, and someone else said they couldn’t watch CSI because of all the mistakes.

That’s how I feel about medical shows. First, it’s too much like being at work. Second, none of them get it right. That includes ER and especially Diagnosis Murder. I spend too much time yelling at the TV, and don’t enjoy it. I can’t do the “suspension of reality” thing with medical shows. So I gave up watching them, and watch the shows with subject matters that I don’t have a background in.

I hear this complaint a lot… so I decided to reply, and here’s what I said:

It doesn’t bug me that characters on TV can always get a parking space on a busy street, right in front of where they are going… or that buildings identified as “Police Headquarters” or “Community General Hospital” are actually something else in real life…or that a street a character drives down in a chase doesn’t actually intersect with the next street we see the car on… those are simply the realities of creating a fictional reality… of using the “real world” as stage.

As for the medical, legal, and forensic gaffes in shows like Diagnosis Murder, Missing, and Hunter (to name a few shows I’ve been associated with), there are lots of reasons. One, sometimes reality doesn’t work for the demands of telling a compelling, fast-moving story in 46 minutes (do you really want to wait weeks for DNA on “CSI”? Or doesn’t it make more sense for story-telling purposes to get it in 10 seconds?). Two, we aren’t doctors, FBI agents, or cops… nor are we writing/producing documentaries… errors of fact are inevitable. And three, accuracy isn’t our priority… entertainment is. It’s all make-believe anyway. As long as you are entertained, does it really matter? We always make up things that don’t exist in fiction… and sometimes where reality and fiction collide, there are errors. I shrug most of them off.