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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."
Rise and fallSpoiler 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. Social soapboxBoston 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.
CriticismThe 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] CharactersMain 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. Cast
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