Boston Legal Bias

I sometimes enjoy watching Boston Legal on ABC. It’s clever, quirky, and has good dialogue. Other times, I don’t enjoy it so much, because the show’s producer, David E. Kelley, can’t keep his political views out of the show. I don’t expect the show to be completely balanced, but I do expect it to be somewhat fair.

Tonight’s episode included three story lines:

1) A man is accused of murdering the judge for whom he is clerking and with whom he was having an affair.

2) Denny Crane (William Shatner) meets an online acquaintance for the first time, only to find out she’s a midget. He spurns her and she sues him, accusing him of dwarf-hatred.

3) A transvestite with multiple personalities sues his employer when he is terminated for wanting to take maternity leave.

Some people have long claimed that Hollywood only portrays Christians as hypocritical, crazy, or deluded. Let’s see how tonight’s episode of Boston Legal fares.

The story includes three references to Christianity:

1) The murdered judge’s next-door neighbor says he is “really Christian”, right before he admits to being a peeping-Tom who watched the judge have sex with the clerk.

2) Denny Crane, trying to get away from his date with the midget, claims he can’t date her because she’s Jewish and he’s Christian.

3) It is revealed that the accused murderer had dreams that God was telling him to kill the judge. The clerk admits to these dreams and says that he was raised in a very “conservative” (which is probably a code word for “Catholic”) household and feels a lot of guilt for committing adultery with the judge, although he claims he didn’t kill her.

Not bad. Two out of three. The peeping-Tom “Christian” neighbor is hypocritical and the accused murderer’s “conservative” upbringing may have driven him to murder.

But wait, there’s more!

Each episode ends with Denny Crane and Alan Shore (James Spader) sitting on their penthouse patio smoking cigars, drinking scotch, and ruminating about their day. This is usually David E. Kelley and his writers' chance to disseminate their opinions to their unwary audience. Usually, Alan Shore spouts a liberal viewpoint and Denny Crane takes a conservative viewpoint. But always, Alan Shore comes across as the reasonable intellectual, while Denny Crane comes across as, well, having “mad-cow disease”.

Tonight’s patio conversation started with Denny Crane making judgmental comments about midgets - about how they breed like hamsters and have midget orgies. Alan Shore takes these comments and turns them into a soliloquy against racial profiling and a (perceived) attack on civil liberties.

For once, I’d like to see the conservative/Republican viewpoint portrayed with logical, sound arguments and a better representative than Denny Crane.

Come on, David, I expect more of you. Take the challenge. Let’s see what happens if you create a mix of characters that truly reflects reality, instead of constantly reminding us that you are the liberal master of your television domain.