Corpus Christi Caller-Times Ricardo Baca, media critic

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Friday, October 26, 2001

Classroom calamities

'Boston Public' second season takes urban high school life to the edge with newest star

Actress Jeri Ryan, best known as the sexy Seven of Nine from ‘Star Trek: Voyager,’ is joining the FOX series ‘Boston Public’ this season.

Onorthodox doesn't even begin to explain the teaching methods portrayed on FOX's "Boston Public."
   The sophomore David E. Kelley drama debuts at 7 p.m. Monday (right before the "Ally McBeal" season premiere at 8), and fans of the smart show will soon appreciate that Kelley and his writing staff are maintaining the educational extremities and classroom calamities the show quickly became known for.
   School of hard knocks
   You could call the staff of Boston's Winslow High School empowered, but that's perhaps misguided. Unflinchingly blunt is more accurate. Last season, teacher Harry Senate (Nicky Katt) fired a gun (loaded with blanks, but nonetheless loaded) in his classroom to make a point. Senate later admitted to an affair with a student.
   This season starts off with a still-employed Senate refereeing a fistfight between two rival gang members in his empty classroom; fellow teacher Harvey Lipschultz (Fyvush Finkel) is also continuing his unfiltered lecturing style, which pays no attention to standards of obscenity or discretion.
   Ah, yes, controversy still rules the halls of Winslow High - and this season introduces a few new faces to help dish the dirt and shove the envelope.
   Michael Rapaport, who has appeared in numerous films and also in "Friends" last season as Phoebe's boyfriend, will portray teacher Danny Hanson at Winslow. Jeri Ryan, known as Seven of Nine in "Star Trek: Voyager," is now Ronnie Cooke, an attorney fed up with her own profession and ready to make a change.
   Cooke is intrigued after appearing in Senate's classroom as a guest speaker and witnessing the rival-gang fight. She vows to her sometimes-boyfriend (guest star Billy Zane) that she's giving up her law books for textbooks.
   Ryan says she's ready to tackle the hallways of Winslow as an actor, but in no way could imagine sending her own child to a public school like Winslow.
   "You know, (the show is) heightened reality. It's TV, you know? We're not holding this up as the example of what reality is in school all the time," she said during a summer interview in Los Angeles.
   We've come a long way since "Welcome Back, Kotter" and "Head of the Class" were considered heightened reality TV set in an educational setting. Not only are near-tragedies a part of everyday life for "Boston Public" principal Steven Harper (Chi McBride), but the storylines and character relationships are often equally as ludicrous.
   From space to school
   Only in a Kelley drama could a successful lawyer walk into the principal's office and proclaim, "I want to be a teacher," as Ryan does at the end of this week's episode, and it magically happens. How does she survive the move from the courtroom to the classroom? We'll find out in episode two, but even more pressing, how did Ryan survive the move from deep space to Boston?
   "The approach is different," Ryan said. "Seven of Nine had every human emotion because she was human before she was ... assimilated into the collective. So she had all of these emotions, she just wasn't comfortable expressing them, and didn't really know how to express them.
   "And Ronnie, my character on 'Boston Public,' is quite comfortable expressing them, and is fairly free with her expressions. ... It's going to be much more free, as far as the acting style."
   Ryan's entrance into "Boston Public" makes for the third show she's joined after its initial season. After joining "Dark Skies" and "Voyager" midway through their runs, she's excited to be on Winslow faculty at the beginning of the show's second season.
   "It's not the easiest of situations," said Ryan about joining already gelled crew. "It's always going to be a little awkward at best when you begin. But these are really warm, wonderful people who are very welcoming, and, you know, everybody understands the situation that you're in when you're the new kid, and they all go out of their way to make you feel comfortable."

Pop culture and media critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 886-3688 or by e-mail at bacar@caller.com

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