Television

After four decades, 10 Emmys, and more than a few flops, Steven Bochco still hasn't figured out what makes a hit television show.

"Every show by definition is a shotgun marriage," the producer of Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue and L.A. Law said recently. "You're putting a gun to people's heads and you say, 'OK, you're marrying this material, now learn to love it.' "

His latest wedding, Raising the Bar, will debut Monday on TNT. A legal drama set in the Bronx, the 10-episode series is based on Indefensible, a book by public defender David Feige.

The ensemble show features Mark-Paul Gosselaar as a young, idealistic public defender doing daily battle with a corrupt judicial system, Jane Kaczmarek as an arrogant judge and Melissa Sagemiller as an equally idealistic assistant district attorney. Bochco's son Jesse directed the pilot.

By the time shooting was almost finished, Bochco said the series had "evolved stylistically to the point where we all love it. We're devoted to it."

At 65, the trim and silvery Bochco appeared mild-mannered and matter-of-factly confident about his own talent for multilevel storytelling and character development. (He taught Feige, co-creator and writer, the screenwriting craft from scratch over the course of a year. "It was tough, but he's a wonderful student," Bochco said. "I can't imagine having done this show without him.")

And he's done enough cop, hospital and law shows to know the lay of the land.

"I've always been attracted to shows in which people get corrupted by one thing or another, or fight against being corrupted morally or ethically" as those are the things that shape character, he said.

Still, considering social, cultural and business shifts since his heyday, he's curious to see whether "there's still a significant enough audience out there for this show to survive."

Over the last 20 years, Bochco and his signature style have steadily aged beyond the average core audience and the average network president.

He has publicly lamented broadcast television's drift from the socially and culturally significant dramas that he fought to make in the late 1960s and '70s.

A mockingly self-described "dinosaur," Bochco believes Raising the Bar might test his own relevance in a changed world, and at least one critic agrees with his assessment. Reviewing Raising the Bar for the Associated Press, Frazier Moore writes:

"The 1980s just called, and it wants this drama back.

"TNT has hyped Raising the Bar as the latest landmark series from Steven Bochco ... but don't be misled. Raising the Bar is no breakthrough. Arriving as Bochco's umpteenth lawyer-centric series, it has a certain instant familiarity. Its glossy look and pat formula seem lifted from a couple of decades ago, when such a drama might have felt cutting-edge."

Bochco is generally credited with creating complicated narratives, multiple story lines and ensemble casts that became the norm. His shows pushed envelopes for more realistic language and sexual behavior. Before Bochco's L.A. Law, the dominant legal show of the 1980s, law shows were more like murder mysteries played out in court.

Bochco, whose Bochco Media is producing the show with ABC Studios, said he's happy to be on TNT, even though cable pays less than broadcast and generally orders fewer episodes. "Many of the crew are taking pay cuts to come and work with us because they believe in what we're doing," he said.

Bochco periodically has considered quitting the business, he said, but then gets a chance to work unhindered and realizes how much he still loves to make shows that are "about something."