When Writers Let Down Their Characters

Alan Shore's soap-boxing on Boston Legal gets tedious. Other than the (far more interesting) episodes where he defends murderers, he is often designated to be the "ranter" about contemporary issues in episode after episode. 

Most of the time, I tune it out. There are well-written exceptions, such as when Alan is arguing in favor of the right to die and loses his cool since he is thinking about Denny (who has Alzheimer's). Another is when Alan uses his fast-talking patter to convince a private school to accept a bright female student who doesn't smile as expected. 

The Supreme Court episode, however, was a huge let-down. 

James Spader is no mean actor. Before going before the justices, he conveys Alan's nervousness, his shock that he is being asked to speak before such an august body. He is a ranter, a patter-master, the guy who relies on shock and awe and personal story-telling to convince the jury. Now he has to make a judicious argument about law. 

It was an excellent opportunity to give Alan another side, to show that he has the pure unadulterated strength of will that one sees in characters like Mary McDonnell as Captain Raydor, or the more interesting possibility, to show that he is out of his depth and knows it. 

But no--the writers just gave him another very long rant that I fast-forwarded through because it was so entirely shallow and silly, like junior high students calling each other names. Oh, look, I made fun of a chief justice, ya ya ya.   

Here's what interested me more than the stupid speech:

I didn't hold it against the character.  

When Without a Trace was on, I loathed the Anthony LaPaglia character. Loathed him. And no amount of good writing or poor writing would have made any difference. 

On the other hand, I've always thought it was grossly unfair to accuse Worf of being a bad security officer when it was clearly the writers' fault that he kept missing the bad guys who beamed onto the bridge. Why blame Worf for lousy writing? 

I think the difference comes down to nothing more or less profound that a visceral reaction. 

It isn't (necessarily) the actor. Turns out I kind of like Anthony LaPaglia as long as he is being Daphne's brother. And I like Emma Watson even though I thought she was terribly badly cast as Beauty. 

The visceral reaction is whether or not I like the character. Anthony LaPaglia's character in Without a Trace has this hang-dog attitude that puts my back up. But even though I disagree with 60% of Alan Shore's politics, he is so ready to go fishing with Denny rather than blather on and on--and so willing to see himself as a kind of clown--I forgive him nearly everything.

And Worf is, well, Worf!

In any case, my reaction explains why characters can survive on their own--Sherlock survived even Conan Doyle's duds.