By that I mean how did David Kelly use the medium of prime time TV to so eloquently show off his sense of right and wrong while still making a most bizarre and unpredictable issue conscious show?
I just finished watching the last season on DVD and I think it's the best use of using the public airwaves to push across a strong point of view on the issues of the day while creating a very complex and funny world at a law firm. are people at law firms like this? I have to imagine they are because I've been on some sets in and some meeting where the people running thing say the most sophomoric things and it hits me over and over…people really are pretty much the same no matter what career they get into.
In the last episode he took on gay marriage, jew bashing, Alzheimer's and the very executives at the network who fired his show. The thing that makes me downright jealous is that many actors got to play, and I do mean play, with zany, funny, not often discussed-in-public themes. Denny Crane (William Shatner) shot everyone he didn't like with his ever-present guns, he dated a midget ("Don't call us midgets Denny it's offensive!"), and he was best friends with a liberal.
Alan Shore (James Spader) was magic as an attorney taking on what was right in society at the kind of big money law firm we've all come to expect was just in it for the money. His summations became legendary. The humility of the show was that David Kelly never let the characters get full of themselves nor the show in general. He made fun of his show before we could.
Humility is not often seen in TV but this show had it in spades. They winked at the camera at least once a show and reminded us that it's just a TV show, not something we should put at the center of our world. There's a problem when hours of the morning talks shows are dedicated to talking about nothing more than the TV shows that were on last night. Our world is a fragile thing it seems though many of us are okay to disappear into the TV and let it fall apart around us. Here was a show with truly funny and truly scarily real topics being discussed and argued and stuffed in our heads by great actors who dealt with them and made us consider the other guy's point of view in a setting that always threw you a screwball.
An actors dream.
You did it well Mr. Kelly.