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10:49 am - Sun 5/19/02
TV--Teacher, Mother...Secret Lover

TV--TEACHER, MOTHER...SECRET LOVER

I just thought about this the other day; Every David J. (Is that the right middle initial?) Kelley show I've watched--LA Law, Ally McBeal, Boston Public, and The Practice--I've stopped watching before the end of its run.

With LA Law, there was a season where three of the main characters left--the ones played by Harry Hamlin, Jimmy Smits, and Susan Dey--and the show was never the same after that. The heart had been cut out of it.

With Ally McBeal, there just started to be too many times where I was watching the show saying to myself, "This is stupid...". Then when Angel was moved opposite Ally on the WB...my decision was made.

With Boston Public, it was the preview of one particular episode that got me; Apparently, it was discovered some of the girls at the school had set up their own porn website.

Now being the horndog I am, you wouldn't think a plotline like that would bother me, would you? But we'd already had plotlines about a student coming on to a teacher (For a time, the female student was blackmailing him, because they had kissed), a student and teacher having an affair, a controversy with the cheerleading squad because of a "sexually explicit" routine, a female nominee for class president buying off her male competitors with blowjobs, a student moonlighting as a stripper, a student videotaping girls changing in the lockerroom, a contest among senior guys to see how many girls they could "bag", and a moral dilemma over whether a teacher could tell a girl the her date to the prom was a convicted sex offender.

(In the time since I've stopped watching, I saw another preview where girls were selling themselves to the highest bidder as prom dates.)

It just started to seem like severe "creative bankruptcy" had set in. And I've gotten to the point where I really want my titillation to come with actual dramatic content. Otherwise, what's the point? (If I just want to get off, I have the Internet for that.)

And with The Practice, it was also a preview of an upcoming episode that turned me off, though I was on my way to losing interest already.

It was the season ending storyline where the firm defends a guy who thinks he's "Hannibal Lecter".

The "creative bankruptcy" issue there is twofold; This is, by my count, at least the fourth time the firm has had contact with/defended/had to defend themselves from a serial killer, and it's old. And I think making the guy be someone who "thinks" he's "Hannibal Lecter" is really weak, like they wanted to use the character and couldn't afford Anthony Hopkins.

Well, as it often does, time's gotten away from me. I had intended to talk more about one of my favorite subjects--tv--but it'll have to wait for another entry.

Stay tuned.

 

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