"Boston Public" 2/24 -- Count the plot cliches!

Cafe Society
#1

Since no one else has mentioned this, I guess I’ll start.

I always thought this show was kinda dumb, but it had enough “scandal of the week” potential to sucker me in every week. Except for last night. It was played up as whats-her-name’s debut episode, but the writers must have been phoning it in, since the plot was nothing more than three jumbled, tiresome, overdone cliches:
[ul][li]Shy, “ugly duckling” girl with talent is persuaded to attend the big audition, but freaks out.[/li][li]Shy brainiac 12-year-old can supposedly play 3 games of chess and thinks Einstein’s faulty, gets crush on cute boy who can’t reciprocate, lets him have it.[/li][li](scandal of the week, straight from the headlines) Gay kid gets assaulted by teammates. Teacher wants to raise awareness, but surprise, no one has anything to say. Teacher makes impassioned speeches, and his club is suddenly inundated with interest as the music swells.[/ul][/li]
Of course, after watching next week’s preview, maybe this episode was only filler for the week, the requisite “Joe Millionaire” lead-in. Discussion?

#2

By odd coincidence, that was the first episode I have ever seen of Boston Public.
You are correct.
They didn’t miss a single cliche.

I don’t think I will make the mistake of watching it again.

#3

I’ve never watched the show, but from the OP and other information I have heard about it, I can assure you that the school system depicted in the show doesn’t bear the slightest, remotest resemblance to the actual Boston school system. In case anyone thought it did.

#4

Boston Public is the Oz of school shows. They take every screwed up thing that’s ever happened in a school and cram it into one show. The city it takes place in doesn’t even matter. It could be New York Public or Chicago Public or Toronto Public or Mexico City Public, it wouldn’t make any difference.

#5

My own experience in the Boston Public School system, at least in Middle School, was occasionally pretty eventful.

I went to the Lewis Middle School in Roxbury (Which has improved immensely since I was there.) and during three years there:

On the first day, I was witness to at least part of a teacher’s breakdown. In history class the guy started ranting about his own personal Kennedy conspiracy theory and threw a desk at a kid who wasn’t listening. Later that day he bounced a book off a kid’s head and was promptly fired.

During my second year one teacher decided to take it upon himself to start meteing out corporal punishment to unruly students, until he chose the wrong student to punish and got punched out.

A group of students decided to stage a walkout to protest a particularly well-liked teacher losing his job. Though naturally most of the kids in school didn’t give a rats ass, more that 2/3s of the student body participated in the walkout figuring it was a legitimate excuse to get out of class. They were wrong. When threatened with suspension all but the dozen or so who got things started went back inside.

A murder was committed in the park on the other side of the school’s parking lot and though the killer wasn’t a student, the gun used somehow ended up in the school and the cops came in and search everyone’s lockers.

And on top of this the school was a mess (the boy’s bathroom was an absolute sty) fights broke out almost every day, I myslef was almost constanly ridiculed and was beaten up on several occasions for no better reason than I was an easy target.

Of course, this was all in the course of three years. On Boston Public 20 messed up things happen every day. I like it for the same reason I liked OZ, it’s a train wreck, but it’s an entertaining train wreck.