Boston Public has dual lesson plans

NEW YORK (AP) - "Boston Public," David E. Kelley's drama-with-laughs about high school life, can teach you a thing or two. Just what, however, depends on who you are: young or a bit older.

As with Kelley's other series (which include "The Practice" and "Ally McBeal"), "Boston Public" molds society on his unique terms: goofy, fractious and impassioned.

Deftly staged debates on social issues coexist with sight gags. (On one "Boston Public," an airborne breast-implant sample knocked out a teacher in the hall.)

He's one clever fellow, that Kelley. But with "Boston Public" (which airs Monday at 8 p.m. EST on Fox), he has taken his creative cunning to new heights. Here is a series that does all the Kelley things, but does them twice concurrently: a "Boston Public" episode plays out as two distinct viewing experiences, targeted to two different audiences.

If you happen to be young, you identify with the students at Boston's Winslow High School, youngsters who know that the world, however dicey, can and should reward them with its blessings.

If you're older, you embrace the school's authority figures, who drill you in the code of lowered expectations: Maybe you'll be pardoned for your sins, but in adulthood no good deed goes unpunished. And there's no grading on a curve.

Here, packed in one series: dual messages simulcast to bimodal demos! Thus does Kelley work both sides of the generation gap!

The 20-and-under crowd is naturally receptive to the "Boston Public" youngsters running amok. (A teen-age sex posse! A grossly overweight girl beating up her male tormenters! A PC-packing eavesdropper, Sheryl Holts, dishing all the Winslow High dirt on her Web site, "Holts.45"!)

Meanwhile, over-30 viewers find their own disappointments and self-doubts embodied by the show's outnumbered, often powerless adults. "I keep looking for the hope every day," says geology teacher Harry Senate (Nicky Katt),"forgetting the hope's supposed to be me."

It's those adults who form the show's core. But "Boston Public" also boasts that constantly replenished student reservoir. Here is an inexhaustible source of relatable young pretties to attract the youth audience, which in turn can share their dim view of the high school's hamstrung command.

For instance, Principal Steven Harper. Played by Chi McBride, he is a leader who speaks softly and carries a big body. (He's huge!) But that only makes it worse, since he's always on thin ice. Harper meets with defiance at every turn: from students, parents, teachers and the district bigwigs.

His second-in-command is Scott Guber, the vice principal (which means the enforcer). Played masterfully by Anthony Heald, Guber is a tough guy with a tender streak who listens to classical music in his office and longs for romance. He is very good at his thankless duties, and pays for it in isolation.

"The only person around here who even likes me is you," he confides to Harper. "I was never well-liked growing up, and when I decided to go into teaching I knew I'd be a vice principal because that's the job when it's appropriate to be hated."

He, like everyone at Winslow High, is a victim of a litigious culture that makes day-to-day existence even trickier to navigate. Kelley, the gifted lawyer-turned-TV-auteur, never strays far from jurisprudence on his shows, and "Boston Public" is no exception.

Early in the season, the parents of the star football player sued Harper because their son was dropped from the team after failing two courses. The parents of a school bully sue when he gets hurt in a fight. Holts sues when the school shuts down her Web site.

On last week's episode, Guber and Harper were in court to defend their firing of a teacher who kept quiet about a colleague's hot affair with a beautiful, Shakespeare-quoting Winslow senior.

Representing the dismissed teacher was none other than formidable Ellenor Frutt, the Boston lawyer played by Camryn Manheim on "The Practice."

In her closing argument, she reeled off comparable offenses by other faculty members who were allowed to keep their jobs:

"Harry Senate, who kisses students and shoots guns in classrooms. ... Harvey Lipshutz, a bigot, who orders girls to wear bras for the good of the country. Marla Hendricks, a manic-depressive who goes on and off her medication, and leaves notes on the blackboard: 'Gone To Kill Myself."'

And on Frutt went, sparing few in the school's employ.

"We all have our flaws, no question," said Principal Harper in his hushed yet forceful response. "But we also have one thing in common: We put the interests of our students first."

On "Boston Public," the young are promised, and demand, everything life can offer. The grown-ups know to settle for less, if that. On any level, it's plenty entertaining, even instructive, to behold. But what you see depends on where you stand.