Author: [log in to unmask] Date: 12/15/94 11:01 AM [Editor's note: This message was submitted to SCREEN-L by the "Author" noted above, and not by Jeremy Butler ([log in to unmask]).] Joe Swift writes: "This year, it seems to have lost that balance. The whole storyline involving integration of Rome's schools seemed awfully didactic to me. Some of the characters' actions seemed untrue to their personas; the military standoff at the school when the first busloads of kids from Green Bay arrived was over the top. The writing has seemed forced and predictable, rather than organic." I have to agree that I found the confrontation initially offputting, but in retrospect, and as the story thread continues to evolve, I have found it interesting as a deliberate attempt by the show to open issues that are rarely discussed in prime-time series. The overreaction of "good" Dr. Jill and the somewhat hesitant willingness to go along of "good" Sheriff Jimmy seemed to me to attempt to portray the symptomatic assumptions of some "liberals" who will criticize from afar but cry "NIMBY" when issues become too close. In dramatic terms, there seems to be a delibeate decision to shift the show's emphasis from the Brocks to other, more peripheral characters, including the black DA, who's starting to evolve in interesting ways. At any rate, I've found it typical of the show that just when you think a character is safely slotted into a predictable type (a la Bochco shows), a new dimension is revealed. Even Carter Pike may become a serious person after all. --Don Larsson, Mankato State U., MN