Free Speech Impediment

By Rory O'Connor, AlterNet. Posted March 10, 2005.

To read the original and revised scripts, go here.

David E. Kelley – the Emmy Award-winning creator of such memorable series' as Picket Fences, Doogie Howser M.D., Ally McBeal, Boston Public, The Practice, and its current spin-off, Boston Legal – is probably the most prolific and successful writer/producer now working in television. Coupled with the fact that he is married to film star Michelle Pfeiffer, Kelley’s talent makes him one of the most influential people in the entertainment world. But apparently even Kelley’s power pales before the might of Disney and the MausHaus.

Case in point: the next episode of Boston Legal, to be broadcast Sunday March 13 on the Disney-owned ABC network. AlterNet has acquired both the original and the revised script for this episode from a source who prefers to remain anonymous. The original penned by Kelley focused in large measure on Fox News and its loofah-loving star Bill O'Reilly. The script also featured substantial excerpts from the independent film Outfoxed, which documents how the allegedly "fair and balanced" cable channel acts as a propaganda arm for the Republican Party and other conservative interest groups.

But the final script – the one that was actually shot for the show that will appear on Sunday – has been thoroughly scrubbed on orders from top ABC network executives, and all mention of Fox News and O’Reilly has been sent down the Memory Hole.

Why was the original script, which ironically centered on issues of free speech, censored?

Kelley won’t say why the changes were made – and no one at his production company, his producing partner 20th Century Fox, ABC or even Fox News is talking.

But a comparison of the original script and the censored script speaks for itself. In the original, Chi McBride (principal of the high school featured in Kelley’s previous hit Boston Public) installs a "Fox Blocker" on every television set in his school, on the entirely reasonable grounds that what appears on Fox News is not news but in fact "hate speech." One of his students, Stuart Milch, believes McBride’s decision to be censorship, and takes his case to the attorneys of Boston Legal.

Here’s a taste of what millions of viewers will now miss next Sunday:

Stuart: "It’s called a Fox Blocker. Sold off the internet. You attach it to the coaxial cable on your television and it basically blocks out all Fox News transmissions… My high school principal attached these liberal, left-wing devices to all the televisions in the building. Meanwhile, the kids are free to watch CBS, CNN, NBC, even ABC, But not Fox. It’s censorship."

It’s called censorship, all right – just not on Boston Legal anymore. Here’s what the final, scrubbed-and-censored script says instead:

Stuart: "It’s called a news blocker. Sold off the internet. You attach it to the coaxial cable on your television and it basically blocks out news transmission…. My high school principal attached these devices to all the televisions in the building. The problem is… turns out it only blocks out one network, the most fair and balanced one. All the others, kids can watch."

Here’s another example, this time of an interchange between two Boston Legal characters – attorney Chelina Hall and Catherine Piper, secretary to attorney Alan Shore (played by Boston Legal star, James Spader.) Again, original script first:

This and other articles by Rory O'Connor are available on his blog.

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