TV is the new reading

'Raising the Bar' sounds a little iffy

Young, beautiful lawyers leap in and out of each other’s beds literally and figuratively in the new Steven Bochco project “Raising the Bar,” premiering commercial-free Monday at 9 p.m.

While this is indeed the same Steven Bochco who gave us “Hill Street Blues” and “L.A. Law” and “NYPD Blue,” he’s also the one who gave us “Cop Rock,” “Blind Justice” and rode ABC’s embattled “Commander in Chief” down the drain. And in terms of cable productions, his recent FX entry “Over There” was too gritty, real and demoralizing a look at the war in Iraq way too soon to be much of a hit.

And I’m not certain Zack Morris is really a secret weapon. Let me explain. Mark-Paul Gosselaar – Zack from “Saved by the Bell” – keeps showing up in Bochco’s work like he’s got something on him, and he’s rarely much help. Once shoehorned into the cast of “Commander in Chief,” one of his most significant additions was also the silliest, when he and a staffer, stuck on a layover, decided to have sex on every flat surface in Air Force One. Not his best storyline.

We meet him again as Jerry Kellerman, the angrily idealistic public defender who graduated from law school with everyone he finds himself working with and against. The district attorney’s office is made up of hungry young things like Melissa Sagemiller as Michelle Ernhardt and J. August Richards as Marcus McGrath.

You might remember Richards from his five seasons on the WB’s “Angel,” the show about a vampire detective. In the final season, his character got a brain boost and a sharp suit and transitioned from being a street fighter and vampire slayer to being Charles Gunn, attorney at law, with about as much explanation as I just gave there.

He carried the young lawyer persona he came up with into an NBC production called “Conviction,” which ran for barely two episodes. Disappointing. So here he is again as a hungry young lion in a cable legal drama, and I’m wishing him all the best, but I’m having the worst time figuring out exactly what’s so interesting about this series.

See, all through the late ‘90s a man named David E. Kelley was producing a legal-eagle series set in Boston called “The Practice,” featuring young lawyers who, in the words of Shakespeare, “strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.” In fact, the young district attorney was dating one public defender and rooming with another.

This series was adorable, and forcefully idealistic at the beginning. It got more and more ridiculous as all of the lawyers became involved in their own lawsuits, before transitioning into “Boston Legal,” a character-driven spinoff which has almost nothing to do anymore with the law.

And with the many, many “Laws & Orders” out there and the “Judging Amys” and the rest, how will a new legal drama stand out, even with a kooky judge and a pretty cast?

I guess we’ll find out. “Raising the Bar” airs at 9 p.m. Monday on TNT.