Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 24, 1995 TAG: 9507250018
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ERIC MINK NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
DATELINE: PASADENA, CALIF. LENGTH: Medium
``Murder One,'' scheduled for Thursday nights at 10, will revolve around one fictional murder case for its entire 23-week season. Bochco told TV writers here that the press' ``unfortunate nosiness about story lines'' can seriously damage the viewers' experience, and he intends to do everything he can to prevent it from damaging ``Murder One.''
``It kills good storytelling,'' Bochco said, when newspapers and magazines get hold of scripts in advance and reveal what happens in future episodes of a show.
As the ``Murder One'' season comes to an end, Bochco vowed, ``We will take every measure possible to ensure privacy.''
Uncertainty about the outcome of the series' central murder case was even important in the creative process, Bochco said. When he and his colleagues wrote the script for the pilot episode, they deliberately did not consider whether they eventually would make the suspect in the case guilty or innocent.
Pinning down that element finally became unavoidable, he said, after they had planned about six of the episodes. ``We realized we were getting to a point in the storyline where if we didn't know the ending, we couldn't really figure out the middle.''
The staff spent about a week sorting through their dramatic options before deciding which way to go.
Bochco said he was not at all daunted by the prospect that viewers might tire of following just one story for a whole season, and he bluntly rejected comparisons to ``Twin Peaks,'' which strung out the hunt for Laura Palmer's killer over a whole season.
``People did not get bored with one story,'' Bochco said of ``Twin Peaks.'' ``People got bored with no story. We have a story.''
In addition to the continuing primary story line, he said, almost every episode will contain a second, smaller story line that will involve the younger members of the criminal law firm at the center of the show. That smaller story will be wrapped up over the course of the hour.
As to updating the occasional or drop-in viewer, Bochco said the show has come up with a device very different from the traditional ``Last week on NYPD Blue'' segments that open his other shows.
Instead, the writers have created a fictional legal show, ``Law TV,'' modeled after Court TV, which will appear within ``Murder One,'' usually within the first two or three scenes. On it, anchors and analysts will discuss the main murder case in question, bringing viewers up to date in the process.
Bochco had little good to say about the commentators who appear on Court TV, CNN and other TV outlets who have become famous analyzing the day's events in the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
``When you're called upon to be a commentator,'' Bochco said, ``you automatically become a part of the business of entertainment surrounding the trial. Candidly, most of what these people say is suspect.''
Bochco's attitude about legal analysts on TV will be reflected in the ``Law TV'' show-within-a-show segments of ``Murder One,'' although Bochco expects that some of the commentators appearing in the segments will be real-life analysts playing themselves.
One of them, he said, will be his show's own legal consultant: former O.J. Simpson attorney Howard Weitzman.
by CNB