City Of Angels

By James Poniewozik

You'd think Steven Bochco was the Branch Rickey of American dramatic television. Ever since the announcement of City of Angels (CBS, Wednesdays, 8 p.m. E.T.), an urban-hospital drama with a mostly black cast, the powerful producer (Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue) has been portrayed like the man who brought Jackie Robinson to the majors: the beneficent white guy who ushered minority talent onto the playing field of TV drama.

But since last July, when the N.A.A.C.P. threatened boycotts against ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC for underrepresenting people of color in prime time, many shows have plugged minorities into their lineups. City's true distinction is that Bochco has brought minorities into the front office. Not only is one of the show's three co-creators African American (Emmy Award-winning director Paris Barclay), but so is half the writing staff and 70% of the production crew. "I've been an actor for 30 years, and normally I'm the only black on a set," says Harold Sylvester, who writes for the show and also plays custodian Wendell. "It's like going home every day."

The N.A.A.C.P.'s complaint focused largely on minority characters. But the casting disparity was the good news, compared with that in the creative and executive ranks. Nearly all the executives who can approve series are white, and a 1998 report by the Writers Guild of America found that 92% of all black TV writers work for mostly black-cast sitcoms. And again, that's the good news. At least there are black-cast sitcoms to be segregated on, an option other minorities don't have.

So the N.A.A.C.P. and the coalition of Hispanic, Asian and Native American groups it joined with decided to focus on diversity behind the camera. "We were interested in pipeline development," says N.A.A.C.P. president Kweisi Mfume, "finding a way to influence the process so it affects what we see over the next 24 to 36 months." This month NBC and ABC promised provisions to train, mentor and find jobs for qualified minorities as writers, directors, producers and executives. Mfume says the coalition is nearing agreements with Fox and CBS. The ABC deal emphasizes scholarships, mentoring and training. The NBC pact creates a minority writing position on each show returning for its second season. (If Stark Raving Mad is renewed, maybe they'll draw straws for it.)

But will these writers get to tell their stories? A recent controversy on UPN's family sitcom Moesha suggests that defining "the black experience" is thorny even on a show with nine black writers. As the title character (played by Brandy) moved on to college, the network sought to add gritty elements to make the squeaky-clean comedy more "relevant" by considering storylines about sex and gangs. One of the show's creators, Vida Spears, resisted the changes and was forced to leave.

The lesson of Moesha is not whether gang banging or being a well-adjusted teen virgin fits the black experience. Both do. Both fit the white experience too, although no one would suggest that white characters must be either Tony Soprano or Dawson Leery. Representativeness--one show expected to carry a whole race--is the curse of minority-cast series when so few are on TV. City's unusualness as a drama is a big publicity boon but also a burden. "Minorities in the business are rooting like hell for this show," says Charles Holland, a black writer. "The stakes are high."

Enter Steven Bochco, the Great Black Hope. He and his creative team believe the hospital setting will offer wider (whiter) appeal. Earlier failed minority-cast dramas (Under One Roof, South Central) focused more on domestic settings and thus, Bochco says, more narrowly on "being black in America. They became shows about race, not good dramas." It's a tricky balance to achieve. On the one hand, Barclay says, "We want to do more in terms of black authenticity than has ever been done," and on the other, City's makers feel they need to sell the show as a hospital drama that just happens to have a minority cast. "My biggest concern," Bochco says, "is that if we don't succeed, there will be a natural tendency to say that if a show with this pedigree couldn't make it, nothing like it can."

Which sure makes it uncitizenly for a critic to knock the series. Unfortunately, the first three episodes mainly prove that a rainbow coalition working together can create a rote, cautious hospital drama just as well as each strand can separately.

City centers on Dr. Lillian Price (Vivica A. Fox), the new medical director called in to clean up the troubled Los Angeles hospital Angels of Mercy like a black tornado; and on Dr. Ben Turner (Blair Underwood), a hunky surgeon-paragon so dignified, wise and ramrod straight he may as well be cast in bronze, who oversees a crew of stressed docs and hotheaded residents. (Michael Warren--Bobby Hill of Hill Street Blues--is excellent but thus far underutilized as the smarmy CEO.) The setup--a hospital deals with limited resources and cutthroat politics--is old hat and, like the obligatory romantic back story between Price and Turner, comes straight out of the Lego Build-Your-Own-Hospital-Melodrama kit. The opening story lines are filled with heartbreaking Solomonic decisions, tragic little children and operatic E.R. confrontations. Meanwhile, a hospital-board fight and a battle over the chief of surgery's job feature Snidley Whiplash skulduggery that could have been taken from General Hospital. Bochco himself calls the series a "melodrama," apparently considering the term no insult. But melodrama impedes deep characterizations, which minorities on TV need more than anyone.

So Bochco is right that City is not only about race. It's just that race turns out to be the only interesting aspect of a drama that's otherwise as routine as an appendectomy. Watching City, you realize how rare it is to see two black professionals talking about anything on TV--be it discrimination or budgets. On medical and cop series, black people too often merely represent society's problems. Here they represent the problems and the solutions--the gang bangers and sainted victims as well as the buppies--and it complicates the usual racial politics of guns-'n'-blood TV dramas. When Price intervenes to have a young black woman sprung from jail to care for her children while her elderly mother has surgery, grandma tells her prodigal daughter to "get on your knees" and thank Price. Imagine the line with a black grandma, a black daughter...and Anthony Edwards.

The race reversal cuts both ways. City's creative team cut most of a scene where a drunk hospital administrator (Garrett Morris) goes to the morgue to take his picture with the nude corpse of an R. and B. singer, fearing that it might tar black men as drunks. "If we were casting Tim Conway, it wouldn't be a racial issue," says executive story editor Dianne Houston.

Even if City does well, the reward for other minorities is unclear. What progress there has been in the industry has tended mostly to benefit blacks, to the frustration of groups like the National Hispanic Media Coalition. "Diversity does not mean blacks alone," says board member Marta Garcia. But one bright spot, for Latinos at least, is Resurrection Boulevard, a drama about four generations of a Latino family of boxers, scheduled to start on Showtime this summer. "This would not have sold to the networks," says creator Dennis Leoni. "Even big shots like Edward James Olmos haven't been able to get Latino shows on the air." That may be beginning to change; CBS has Latino filmmaker Gregory Nava (Selena) developing a series for next season.

All the minority writers to whom the networks have, post-N.A.A.C.P., been offering development deals will probably be watching City's fortunes and CBS's patience. Pointing to good ratings for recent TV movies featuring African Americans, CBS Television president Les Moonves says, "We don't need an instant 20 share to be able to let [City] survive" in its uncompetitive 8 p.m. time slot. But they will need both white and minority viewers to thrive and create the kind of cross-cultural exchange City aims at. In the second episode, a white resident panics when an African-American girl shows up with a gray efflorescence on her legs. A black pediatrician shows him the miracle cure: Vaseline. The girl has ash--a mundane dry-skin condition--and tells him, "It's a black thing." You may remember the second part of that catchphrase: "You wouldn't understand." That makes a good T shirt but not good Nielsens (or race relations). For City's crew and would-be successors, a lot rides on making viewers of all colors understand--or, at least, want to.

--With reporting by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles

With reporting by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles