We don't often want to say it because it comes across as shallow, that gasp we occasionally love and enjoy television. But like it or not, more people get their idea and perceptions of news and the world from entertainment, not real news now then ever before. We cheer on the internet for the quick availability of news, but more people use it to avoid the news and spend their time looking at.. anything else rather then think about social issues.
This brings me to Boston Legal, which finds itself heading to it's series finale tomorrow night in a double header. Based on the nielson ratings, I can assume that the viewership for it will be.. average, and that most here on DailyKos will not be amongst the viewing group. That's OK. Boston Legal, however, represents a real dying art on television.. and we the consumer let it happen without ever really noticing.
Television programming for us is a lot like the social plays of past eras; and like those times of the long past, at some point, society begins to decline and it's a lot more interesting to watch us feed people to lions er.. humiliate people in reality TV... rather then consider the issues.
I spent a great deal of my youth with some of the programming I enjoyed - Perry Mason, Quincy, etc. Yes, they were simple straight forward procedurals. And TV is still full of procedurals. Oops, wait.. yes, TV is full of procedurals (CSI's 3 members of it's franchise, NCIS, Criminal Minds, Law & Order's 3 shows, etc.) but there is a surprising thing about that.. we have not a single one that is not a prosecutorial oriented program. Noticed that? Our social acceptance is that it's more entertaining to believe the worst about people, to play the prosecutor and spend an hour figuring out how to outwit the evil in society.
Again, nothing wrong with this. I have no problem saying I really enjoy a Law & Order now and again. That having been said, it's a bit of social conditioning that there are no other real outlets in this genre on TV. Last of a dying breed, it appears. And based on the pending pilots for next year as of current, it may be the last from this side of the table in a while.
So, let me talk about why Boston Legal stands out as the kind of programming that deserves to be missed. In five years, Boston Legal has dealt with major social issues in a way that doesn't discount the intellectual arguments of both sides. It does so tongue in cheek at times, but often it uses the strongest arguments and shows the real turmoil that goes into many of these issues. It doesn't allow the audience the simple thought of being "right". No simple feel good answers.
What draws quite a few of us to "Boston Legal" however, is the relationship between Denny Crane and Alan Shore. Two characters fully explored beyond their purpose in advancing the drama. Think to any procedural on TV and ask if you know anything about the characters - in general, you don't. The "Crime of the Week" is what is important. Denny & Alan have led a relationship for five years that is the kind of thing quite a few of us knew as kids.. having a "Best Friend", someone we actually relied on, and something that is unfortunately going away.
Deborah L. Ruf, Ph.D. began putting the theory forward in Environmental, familial, and personal factors that affect the self-actualization of highly gifted adults, but others have also noticed - without a string of citations, we are a culture that is becoming a group of hermits who stay at home and don't socialize nearly as much as we used to. We're too rushed to spend time with friends, to build relationships. More and more people couldn't tell you who their neighbors are, and would struggle to name a "Best Friend", if they have one at all.
Denny & Alan's relationship is so well developed because it shows people a relationship more and more wish they had in their own life.
In the past 20 years, there are a handful of shows that I've loved. To be honest, most of those are Science Fiction (see: DS9, BSG) or pure fiction (see: Buffy). Strangely, there were more social issues discussed in the run of "Deep Space Nine" then there is in the 10 seasons of "Survivor", or hell, the majority of the scripted drama that fills our airwaves.
I may be alone in the fact that I will feel a twinge of sadness at the loss of Boston Legal. It's partly the sharp writing, the acting, the storylines. But it's mostly that I will feel sad that we lose another entertainment source that allowed for honest discussion of social and political issues. I'm sure ABC will make out well with another hour of reality TV. I'm sure the public, who didn't pay as much attention during it's run, will not miss it.
Someone made this as a tribute to Alan Shore (James Spader) and his character, but I find it better to let David E Kelley's words do the talking.
D.A. Jonathan Shapiro: Clearly she committed a crime. She didn’t pay her taxes. The only question is will you hold her accountable. Now. No doubt, Mr Shore will try to paint her as some kind of activist hero. But she is no hero, folks. At a time when freedom has never been more precarious in this country, for her to refuse her civic duty and legal duty to pay her taxes, while we have soldiers dying over there. This woman’s deliberate action is as unpatriotic, as un-American, as it is illegal. This is the cut-and-run
behavior of a coward. Don’t you dare declare her a hero.
Alan Shore: When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out not to be true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha! They didn't. Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from. We stood mute. Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorist suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that. We did.
And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough. Evidentially, we haven't.
In fact, if the people of this country have spoken, the message is we're okay with it all. Torture, warrantless search and seizure, illegal wiretappings, prison without a fair trial or any trial, war on false pretenses. We, as a citizenry, are apparently not offended.
There are no demonstrations on college campuses. In fact, there's no clear indication that young people even seem to notice. Well, Melissa Hughes noticed. Now, you might think, instead of withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashioned way. Made a placard and demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice-Presidential appearance, but we've lost the right to that as well. The Secret Service can now declare free speech zones to contain, control and, in effect, criminalize protest. Stop for a second and try to fathom that.
At a presidential rally, parade or appearance, if you have on a supportive t-shirt, you can be there. If you’re wearing or carrying something in protest, you can be removed.
This! In the United States of America. This!In the United States of America. Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarrassed? He sits down abruptly in the witness chair next to the judge.
Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. That's a chair for witnesses only.
Alan Shore: Really long speeches make me so tired sometimes.
Judge Robert Sanders: Please get out of the chair.
Alan Shore: Actually, I'm sick and tired.
Judge Robert Sanders: Get out of the chair!
Alan Shore: And what I'm most sick and tired of... He get’s up and out of the chair. ...is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is labeled un-American.
D.A. Jonathan Shapiro: Evidentially, it's speech time.
Alan Shore: And speech in this country is free, you hack! Free for me, free for you. Free for Melissa
Hughes to stand up to her government and say, "Stick it"!
D.A. Jonathan Shapiro: Objection!
Alan Shore: I object to government abusing its power to squash the constitutional freedoms of its citizenry. And, God forbid, anybody challenge it, they're smeared as being a heretic. Melissa Hughes is
an American. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American!
Judge Robert Sanders: Mr. Shore. Unless you have anything new and fresh to say, please sit down.
You've breached the decorum of my courtroom with all this hooting.
Alan Shore: Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29-year-old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952. He said, "The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression.
Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism."
Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, "It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."
Tomorrow night, it's over. The last hurrah for a program that made it's effort to be quirky, funny, smart, witty and heartfelt. I have plenty of books I've yet to read, but I'll find it a bit sad that as someone who grew up with fictional depictions of the social legal system working to preserve the rights of the accused, after Monday, that kind of programming won't exist. A lot easier to feel good, I suppose, about programming where black and white is a lot easier, we're in the side of the prosecution, and we don't really know anyone.
Let me tip my glass of scotch to you Denny (William Shatner) and Alan (James Spader), and your wordsmith David E Kelley, you'll be missed.
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