Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 109

HLflri Minneapolis Star and TribuneSundaySeptember 141986 7G MISSISSIPPI BOCHCO Has reputation to live up to RIVER CRUISES ST JONATHAN PUBLIC EXCURSIONS CHARTERS DINNER CRUISES FALL COLOR CRUISES 2 P.M. every Sat Adults $5.50 Children Some date still Sept 19, Sept 20- Watch for dates of Sua thru Sept $3.50 Senior J4.50 evsilable Sept, Oct Live Music Prime Rib 2 Hour Cruise these spectacular trips PADELFORD PACKET BOAT HARRIET ISLAND, ST. PAUL, MN 551 07 PHONE 227-1100 mimmmMmmmwmmmmmm si i -If tv- llllllilif Richard ClaydermanQ him that TV audiences had little interest in fictional sports shows, and they were right: Viewers ignored it. Bochco continued to work on "Hill Street Blues," but then, in March 1985, he was fired. He did not have to stand in an unemployment line.

Two years earlier, Bochco had gained a $15 million commitment from NBC to produce 13 hours of another series. He decided on the' law as the milieu. Like "Hill Street Blues." "L.A. Law" will have multiple plots in each episode, usually three or four stories, some of them running over from one week to tne next. And it will have a -large ensemble of relatively little-known actors, the most familiar of whom are Richard Dysart, Susan Dey, Harry Hamlin and Jill Eiken-berry.

Bochco's brother-in-law Alan Rachins plays an abrasive, merce-. nary law partner. One of his long-standing friends, Michael Tucker (who i8 married to Eikenberry), is also cast as a lawyer. Bochco says that when he knows the members of his ensemble personally, it helps him write stories about the characters they play. In Hill btreet Blues, for example, his knowledge that actor Daniel J.

Tra-vanti was a recovering alcoholic prompted him to write a story about alcoholism hounding Capt. Furillo, the character Travanti plays. "If there's one thing I've learned," he says, "it's that unlike theater or film, where the actor must become the character, what finally happens in series television is that the character becomes the actor." This article was excerpted from the New York Times Magazine. Tickets Available at all Dayton's Ticket Outlets Charge by phone 375-2987 VISA, MASTERCARD, AMERICAN EXPRESS or DAYTON'S accepted ON SALE A Jam and Company 7 Production every year, say things don't look 1 nearly as gilt-edged as they once did. And this year, for the first time, CBS and ABC had to lower their rates to advertisers for some programs.

claims it hasn't had to tower rates because its shows are doing so well. A blockbuster like NBC's half-hour comedy. "The Cosby Show," brings in as much as $400,000 from advertisers for a 30-second commercial. Though the ad rates for "L.A. Law" (whose regular slot will be Friday at 9 p.m., when audiences tend to be smaller) may be only half as much, still there are six minutes of network advertising to be sold in every episode.

The potential is many millions of dollars, and thus NBC is making a substantial wager on Bochco and his hard-edged new series. According to industry analysts, fewer than one out of four new series survive after an initial season, but Bochco appears oblivious to the pressure. "This is a failure-oriented business," he says. "Television is not unlike baseball. Where else can you succeed by failing seven out of -10 times?" -'r To Bochco, the keys to success in television are independence and control.

According to him, when a new series is conceived, the producer and the network should have a common vision of it; but after that, the producer should be left alone. "I can't think of anything worse than being blamed for somebody else's fail- ure," he says. "Hill Street Blues" was not an instant hit. And it has never attracted the mass audiences that tuned in to nighttime soap operas like "Dallas" at its peak, or trifles like "Three's Company" or "Love Boat." But the show began to attract a loyal audience, thanks largely to the patience of NBC's then-president Fred Silverman, who kept the show on the air despite dismal ratings its first season, and later, to the attention it got by garnering eight Emmys in 1981. The lionization by his peers, however, did not keep Bochco from learning, in December 1983, that he was mortal.

After only four episodes, NBC canceled the first series he attempted after "Hill Street Blues," a chronicle of the lives of baseball players called "Bay City Blues." Network programmers had warned Schaeff er In 'My Sister Sam." woman whose insurance company is preventing her from getting proper treatment, and the charmingly roguish Arnold Becker (Corbin Bern-sen) is leading his latest client into a very ugly divorce-settlement proceeding. Susan Dey also will be a series regular. With considerable aid from co-producer Terry Louise Fisher, a "Cagney Lacey" veteran, Bochco has been able to maintain the cliche-breaking surprises he has become famous for. (Previews Monday this show repeated on Saturday, Sept. 27, 1 1:05 p.m.; premiere Oct.

3) Amen (Saturdays, 8:30 to 9 p.m.) Thanks to the powerhouse success of "The Golden Girls," turtle races could be aired in the adjoining time slot and still get solid ratings. Last season, "227" was the beneficiary; the new contender for success is a comedy from Johnny Carson's pro- duction stable about a Philadelphia church and its two leaders: a stub-bom, egotistical deacon (Sherman Hemsley) and an earnest new minis ter (Clifton Davis). Hemsley uses his familiar George Jefferson persona and mannerisms under a new name in a different setting. The true star here is Davis; after a bout with drug abuse, Davis went to school for ecumenical training, and he is now the associate pastor of a church in Loma Linda, which accounts for the authentic charm he brings to his role (Premieres Sept. 27.) Jay Bobbin writes regularly about television for Tribune TV Log.

3 -Hti 'il PADELFORD 8 JOSIAH SMELLING THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9 8:00 p.m. Orpheum Theatre TUESDAY GET IN SHAPE. GIRLI T-Shirl Size: r-il Continued from page 1G prises as executive producer of the acclaimed TV series "Hill Street JJBlues." In his new base at Fox, he has to prove that he can live within a budget at a time when network TV troubled by slumping prime-time advertising and studios are curtailing production costs. Bochco also has a reputation to r. uphold as one of Hollywood's brightest and most innovative producers of TV drama.

In 1980, then a journeyman writer-producer, Bochco 1 came out of nowhere to achieve the status of a near-icon among his paters. With co-producer Michael Ko-zoll. who subsequently left the show, Bochco. created "HiU Street Blues." the fast-moving series about life in an inner-city police station that has become one of the most honored series in U.S. television history.

The show has won 26 Emmy awards (a jecord for dramatic series), including tot oocnco nimseit, ana a snow- other prizes. "the reason we don't have more good television," says Grant Tinker, who before becoming chairman of NBC in 1981 oversaw, the birth of vHill Street Blues" at MTM, "is that we don't have enough Steven Boch- cos." "LA Law," Bochco's new project, tSKan hour-long show that employs etements of, the "Hill Street" formu-lar interweaving the professional and private lives of its ensemble of characters, in this case nine lawyers and a legal secretary employed at a large firm in.Los Angeles. to judge from the 'rough cut of twb-hourpilot episode, the show is bound for as much controversy as acclaim. The script is dense with sexual innuendo and dialogue that some viewers may find vulgar. From TtJB opening scene, in which the rigid oerpse of a law partner is carried from his office still clutching his swivel chair, the situations are characterized by visceral power, with "Scenes ranging from the serious to outrageous and the melodramat- The lawyers are nearly all unpleasant, portrayed with few exceptions unprincipled hired guns who go -for the jugular to win a case and rtiake buck.

Yet. because "LA. Law" retains the semi-documentary flavor that gives "Hill Street Blues" Its awa of reality, the show has little of the cartoon quality of prime-time Shows Continued from page 6G uwr: -'V The show is predictably warm-hearted; (Previewed Thurs-. -day; premieres tonight) Easy Street (Sundays, 7. to 7:30 p.m.) Lorn Anderson proved her deftness at comedy as Jennifer on "WKRP in Cincinnati." but the hu-, mor level in this series is pretty low for starters.

The premise: Newly widowed and filthy rich L.K. McGuire (Anderson) invites her dowager un- cte (Jack Elam) and his closest pal to move into her palatial Beverly Hills home. The traditional culture- clash jokes arise. (Previews Saturday; premieres Sept. 28) ALF (Mondays, 7 to 7:30 p.m.) 'Here's the alien puppet show.

The title character's name stands for -Alien Life Form, and that's precisely what lands in the garage of an average American family. The matriarch (Anne Schedeen) has some big in adapting to a creature from the planet Melmac who talks like Archie Bunker, but the kids convince their father (Max Wright) that ALF shouldn't be turned over to the Can this clan find happiness with such a stranger in their midst? (Premieres Sept. .22) Matlock (Tuesdays, 7 to 8 p.m.) 'Andy Griffith's "Diary of a Perfect Murder" fared well during the 1985- 86 season, and it's the inspiration tfoT this new law drama. But unlike other new legal show, "L.A. Law," this one will be more of a "Perry mystery.

Ben Matlock (Griffith) is an Atlanta defense attorney who is charmingly wily. His daughter Chariene (Linda Purl) is the junior partner in his firm; and they're aided by a private investigator. (Previews Saturday; premieres Sept. 23) Crime Story (Tuesdays, 8 to 9 p.m.) Can producer Michael Mann do for gangster tales what he did for the police genre with "Miami NBC obviously hopes so, since this 1 is3he first series effort to depict the underworld since the ill-fated "Gangster Chronicles" five years ago. Xhi8 saga makes it clear who's good and who's bad, though elements of both aspects tend to crop tip in most of the characters.

Foremost among them is Dennis Farina (whose profile precisely matches that of Dick Tracy) as a rugged police detective who supervises the etne Major Crime Unit. Its main target is a mobster whose connections extend beyond the Windy City to Las Vegas and Miami as wen. The story wiU begin in the 1960s, and the plan is to bring it all the way up to 1 982 by the end of the first season. (Previews Thursday, Friday and Friday. Sept.

26; premieres 1 Sept. 30) A. Law (Fridays, 9 to 10 p.m.) Series television rarely gets better than this. The new drama from "Hill Street Blues" mentor Steven Bochco quickly and effectively establishes the members of a Los Stephen Bochco soap operas like "Dallas" and "Dynasty," though it revels in a similar villainy. The presumption seems to be that this is what life in the legal profession is like, and such a blunt vision has rarely been accommodated in prime-time programming.

"I look at myself, as swimming upstream," Bochco says. "I want to do stuff that challenges folks and entertains folks, and I'm willing to take the risk that some people will not like what I do," i Traditionally, Bochco says, "television is not an art medium. It's not really an entertainment medium. is really a commercial sales medium. It does not want to do anything to encourage controversy or distress.

The ideal piece of programming for selling things, I suppose, lulls you into a pleasant sense of well-being, and that's what some of the most successful people in this business have done. There's nothing wrong with that, but they're entrepreneurs, not artists." The major networks could use a few more hits. Last year their collective -advertising revenues fell by 2.8 percent, the first such decline since cigarette advertising was banned on TV in 1971. With income from prime-time advertisers expected to total $2.5 billion in the coming season, the networks are hardly broke. But TV ad sales executives, accustomed to demanding higher rates Pam Dawber (right) and Rebecca i tin Howard Hesseman Angeles legal firm in the opening episode, in the framework of several engrossing subplots.

Michael Kuzak (Harry Hamlin) is forced to defend the son of a wealthy client, one of several youths who assaulted a cancer victim (portrayed rivetingly by Emmy-winner Alfre Woodard), Ann Kelsey (Jill Eikenberry) and her assistant, Abby Perkins (Michele Greene), are battling to ensure the rights of an ill I'- WITH I'jonuoui ivmimnvwu ATSOUTUDM mrnismnnmyi OflOBERt, woo GET 191 SHAPE, EISU1 ULnr.TATE WORKOUT SET AND AN CFFICIAL I jr 1986 Hasbro.lnc. All Rights Reserved. At -eX MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL AREA snccrQiMca cnmr runs) Complete this entry torn snd mail lo Miniwapolis-St. Paul Am Get InShaps, Girlr SwsepstakBSPO.

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