Boston Public

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article.
Please improve it or discuss changes on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions.

Boston Public
Boston Public slogan and logo.
Genre	Dramedy
Creator(s)	David E. Kelley
Starring	Chi McBride Anthony Heald Loretta Devine Sharon Leal Jeri Ryan Fyvush Finkel Michael Rapaport Jessalyn Gilsig Nicky Katt Rashida Jones Thomas McCarthy Joey Slotnick Kathy Baker China Shavers Jon Abrahams Joey McIntyre Natalia Baron
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	81 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time	60 min.
Broadcast
Original channel	FOX
Original run	October 23, 2000 – January 30, 2004

Boston Public is an American television series created by David E. Kelley and broadcast on FOX from October 2000 through to January 2004. It centered on Winslow High School, a fictional public high school located in Boston, Massachusetts. The show was named for the real public school district in which it takes place. Boston Public featured a large ensemble cast and focused on the work and private lives of the various teachers, students, and administrators at the school and their various personalities.

The show's slogan, as it was depicted on its website at the time, was "Every day is a fight. For respect. For dignity. For sanity."

Reruns of Boston Public air on TV One, in the United States, weekdays at 4:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) and the Show Case Diva channel, in Canada, Wednesdays at 5:00pm (Eastern Time).

1 Rise and fall
2 Social soapbox
3 Criticism
4 Characters
5 Cast
6 Trivia
- 6.1 Popular locations
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Rise and fall

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

At the beginning, Boston Public preceded Ally McBeal on Monday nights and received initial popularity and critical acclaim for its drama and ethnically diverse cast. However, the series had a hard time finding a direction or an audience. It was generally felt that the important 18-to-24 year-old demographic would not be interested in a drama about high school teachers, so attempts were made to focus more on the lives of high school students; however, this only caused critics to accuse it of copycatting. These problems, along with bizarre storylines and casting changes, caused the show's ratings to decline. The final nail in the coffin was when Fox moved Boston Public to the Friday night death slot for its fourth (and ultimately, final) season. The number of viewers plummeted accordingly, and Boston Public was cancelled after a truncated fourth season.

The last episode to air in its normal timeslot was on January 30, 2004. The final two episodes aired over a year later in syndication on TV One. Neither episode wrapped up any of the character arcs as the series was cancelled in the middle of its fourth season.

[edit] Social soapbox

Boston Public often served as a soapbox about various contemporary issues. In the tradition of series such as Picket Fences, the show often intertwined a social issue in context of the lives of the characters, and approaching it through discourse between the characters and developments in the storyline that were meant to be reflective of particular sides of the issue. The title of each episode was a numbered chapter, similar to that in a high school textbook, and each character had a certain story arc, with the professional and personal lives often intersecting with the issue at hand. The particular issues tackled by the show included many modern controversies and problems facing American public high schools today, such as affirmative action, teenage pregnancy, school violence, bullying, obesity, racism, gang activity, gay-bashing, school prayer, terrorism, political correctness, poverty, rape, state funding for public education, and general teenage angst/alienation.

Boston Public typically highlighted the tendency of public schools to serve as the flashpoints for the many of the politically volatile controversies in larger scope of American society. Social commentary also sometimes took the form of using the high school setting to serve as a microcosm of America, enabling the show to act as a forum for public discussion, while other times making more subtle criticisms and statements of contemporary American culture.

[edit] Criticism

The most notable criticism in Boston Public was that major characters would vanish from the series without a trace. Other characters such as Harvey Lipschitz and Scott Guber often experienced sudden and unexplained changes in their story arc or personality. For example, Scott works very hard to gain Jeremy Peters' trust while dating his mother; however, once he and Meredith are no longer dating, Scott quickly dismisses Jeremy, as if the only reason he was fighting to gain his trust was because he was dating his mother, which to many, seemed out of character. Later, in Season Four, after three seasons of pursuing women of non-Jewish descent, Scott tells Steven that he believes Jews should marry within the faith. (Interestingly enough, an earlier episode featured Scott's mother suggesting he date Marilyn Sudor, an African-American woman.)

Other complaints includes that the characters were changed to fit the "issue of the episode" instead of acting organically and that the school, too, often changed with the week's themes or stories: sometimes it was a poor urban school that couldn't make ends meet or couldn't pass state tests, while other times, it had a pool, a cable station, elaborate musical theater productions, and overachieving students. Most fans accepted these changes as dramatic license, but others vocally disapproved of many of the show's choices.

Conservative interest groups were unhappy with Harry Senate's indictment against the National Rifle Association, episodes that were critical of conservative attitudes towards homosexuality, and explicit talk about sexual matters. They were also unimpressed with the sexual innuendoes and dialogue that often made its way into the series. According to the American Family Association, a Christian fundamentalist and lobbying group, major television sponsors such as Kellogg's, Southwest Airlines, Merrill Lynch, Wendy's, Qwest, Papa John's Pizza, Hallmark Cards, Marriott, Home Depot, Kmart, Warner-Lambert, and Campbell's Soup consequently stopped running ads during the series because of such criticism. These claims have not been verified by independent groups. [1]

[edit] Characters

Main Article: List of Boston Public characters

While Boston Public won praise for its dramatic realism in shining the light on the challenges facing high school faculty and administrators, critics pointed out the bizarre story lines and characters that even if the series had been continued never seemed to make any sense.

[edit] Cast

Chi McBride as Steven Harper (2000-2004)
Anthony Heald as Scott Guber (2000-2004)
Loretta Devine as Marla Hendricks (2000-2004)
Sharon Leal as Marilyn Sudor (2000-2004)
Fyvush Finkel as Harvey Lipschultz (2000-2004)
Jeri Ryan as Ronnie Cooke (2001-2004)
Michael Rapaport as Danny Hanson (2001-2004)
Natalia Baron as Carmen Torres (2003-2004)
Jessalyn Gilsig as Lauren Davis (2000-2002)
Nicky Katt as Harry Senate (2000-2003)
Rashida Jones as Louisa Fenn (2000-2002)
Thomas McCarthy as Kevin Riley (2000-2001)
Joey Slotnick as Milton Buttle (2000-2001)
Kathy Baker as Meredith Peters (2001-2002)
China Jesusita Shavers as Brooke Harper (2001-2003)
Jon Abrahams as Zack Fischer (2002-2003)
Joey McIntyre as Colin Flynn (2002-2003)
Michelle Monaghan as Kimberly Woods (2002-2003)
Cara DeLizia as Marcie Kendall (2002-2003)

[edit] Trivia

East Boston High School was used as Winslow High School's exterior.
Scott Guber's name is derivative of the Latin word gubernare, which means "to control, to govern, to restrain, to rule."
In the episode "Chapter Four", Fyvush Finkel gives a poor performance of "If I Were a Rich Man" from the musical Fiddler on the Roof. In real life, Finkel starred in that musical for over 12 years.
Fyvush Finkel and Kathy Baker both co-starred on Picket Fences. Both series were created by David E. Kelley.
Boston Public has had crossovers with other David E. Kelley-produced shows. Kevin Riley appeared in The Practice episode "The Day After" as a precursor to the Boston Public episode "Chapter Thirteen", in which Elenor Frutt fought against his dismissal. Steven Harper appeared on Boston Legal in the episode "Let Sales Ring." Dr. Benjamin Harris originated from the Ally McBeal episode "The Wedding".

[edit] Popular locations

The Dungeon was a classroom in the ground floor of the high school where a large number of the troublemakers were put.
The Basement was a lounge for high school seniors but often used for various extracurricular activities. A high school senior, Henry Frears, once rented out the room for students to have safe sex, thus promoting a high school trial with selected students as the jury. Later, Zach Fischer and Ronnie Cooke had sex in the basement one evening while stranded inside the school at the start of winter break. Another group of seniors were also caught using the room to sell test answers.
Doyle's Pub was a bar where the teachers would often meet after work to unwind and discuss their lives.