Word: bochco
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Simpsons, Itchy and Scratchy are a sadomasochistic mouse-and-cat team that enacts scenes of baroque violence in a running parody of kiddie cartoon shows. On CAPITOL CRITTERS, cats really do chase mice -- and the trouble is, it's no parody. The new animated series from Steven Bochco Productions (ABC, debuting Jan. 28, 8:30 p.m. EST) revolves around Max, a country mouse from Nebraska who moves in with his cousin and a ragtag band of rodents living in the basement of the White House. Anyone expecting savvy political satire, however, is due for disappointment. With a few exceptions...
TELEVISION Steven Bochco's Civil Wars revisits L.A. Law territory...
...Civil Wars is bleaker and more brutal than anything Bochco has done before: an unrelenting parade of vengeful spouses, greed, infidelity, callousness and other mental cruelties. "You're bitter, you're needy, and you're gonna poison whatever and whoever you come in contact with!" shouts a husband at the wife he wants to leave because she has gained too much weight. (She actually looks pretty good.) A rich couple bickers over custody of sterling silver soup tureens and antique snuffboxes, until a stenographer -- who is struggling to pay her son's medical bills -- blows up: "You have no idea...
...show's dark tone has apparently given ABC executives some nervous moments. They reportedly asked Bochco to redo the first episode, adding some comic relief; it now contains a subplot about a woman seeking a divorce because her husband thinks he's Elvis. Other problems remain. Civil Wars has too little of interest going on outside the courtroom (no romance so far between Hemingway and Onorati), and its "lighthearted" moments are rather distasteful. One running story involves Hemingway's law partner (Alan Rosenberg), who has a nervous breakdown in the first show and returns later to do kooky things like...
...Bochco may be smarter than ABC thinks. Civil Wars is a canny compendium of every relationship issue the '90s has to offer. And it feeds one of TV's most enduring myths: that the cold legal system has a human face. The moral high ground is always clearly marked -- for the viewer, if not always for the judge. Lawyers, moreover, are warm, understanding and passionately devoted to their clients. Onorati, after negotiating a settlement for the "overweight" wife, accompanies her to her 20th-year college reunion. Hemingway pleads with one client, the wife of a sleazy rock musician...