“It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.” - Sir William Osler






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I Adore Alan Shore

So there's this TV show called The Practice, which I imagine some of you have seen - it's been around for years, though I have never been a fan. Apparently it's about a small, scrappy, dedicated firm of attorneys in Boston. They dedicate themselves to helping the downtrodden and take cases no one else will touch.

Bored yet?

Until a few weeks ago, I would rather have stuck needles in my eyes than watch anything fitting that description. I'm instantly turned off by any TV show about dedicated professionals - be they attorneys, doctors or teachers. They're guaranteed to be chock full of plots based on current events (slightly changed to prevent lawsuits from real people involved in said cases) and boring self-righteous speeches from the actors who are defending their clients/patients/students against... something.

Really, what is it that the protagonists of these shows are fighting against? City Hall? Real life? "The Man"? Evil HMOs? Tobacco companies? Give me a frickin' break. First, scripts dealing with these issues magically turn into a bundle of stale cliches - every scriptwriter in television has been there and done that. Second, there's almost always some sort of wrapped-up ending, which rarely happens in real life. Third, these "antagonists" AREN'T. In real life we deal with big corporations every day of our lives; we have to work with others like ourselves, who are overworked and overwhelmed - not evil; and we have to pace ourselves. If I practiced medicine the way the characters on these shows do, I'd burn out in six months. There's no point in treating everybody who doesn't do what I want like The Enemy. You've got to go along to get along, though that may not make for good drama.

Meanwhile, back on "The Practice": enter Alan Shore, played by James Spader. He's an attorney of slippery ethics who won't stop at much to win his cases. Granted, the writers push this a little far; in the first episode this season Shore admits to his future partners that he embezzled from his previous firm and that's why he was fired. In real life this guy would have been disbarred. Be that as it may, it's clear that he's an asset to the firm. My take on it is that he's the only attorney there who can find his ass with both hands. He isn't troubled by the Big Issues like civil rights violations or racism; he just wants to get his client off and get paid. Huzzah, finally a character I can relate to.

Someday I'd like to draft a script for a TV series about a medical group myself. It wouldn't involve evil HMOs. It would be more about the doctors and office staff, and they'd be real characters that you could relate to. Their sex lives would be offscreen, and none of the docs would have affairs that you'd know about. Plot lines would involve real-life petty issues, like patients with runny noses who insist on antibiotics and docs letting off steam about patients who annoy them. It might not be a success, but it'd be true to life, and I think it could be more interesting than the current high-minded drivel I see every week. I'd give my characters flaws. Example: me, complaining about patients changing their prescriptions because of the ongoing grocery strike. I've been inundated with phone calls for new prescriptions, and I'm sick of it. Why should my staff and I have to waste time with this do-over work because some self-righteous aging lefty doesn't want to cross a picket line?

Now. Is that a plot line, or what? You could spend an entire episode on it!

posted by Dr. Alice at #