You know how sometimes a record will come out from an established band in an established genre, a member of the mainstream not attempting to avoid the mainstream, just to dominate it, and it will be as amazing and life-changing as anything a new or avant-garde or "alternative" act could've thrown at you? R.E.M.'s Green. Who's Next. The Joshua Tree. Led Zeppelin IV. Rubber Soul. Kind of Blue.

Total crap is not unique to the mainstream, but highly visible total crap is, and that's why I think it's important to recognize when mainstream culture produces a truly worthy and transcendent piece of art. And right now, I think we ought to be talking about David E. Kelley's Boston Legal in those terms.

Kelley and the lawyer show genre are manifestly of the mainstream, both alone and together, and have been paired for years -- if L.A. Law hadn't gone off the air it would be in its 20th season. But if BL's mundane title -- much worse than the working title, Fleet Street -- hints at its foundation in common practices of episodic TV drama, it masks a tendency to ignore boundaries and deconstruct at will the Dick Wolfian notions that prop up much of the lawyer show genre.

That this is being done by such a veteran assemblage is what's so amazing. TV drama of late has been ruled by relative newcomers -- Joss Whedon, Alan Ball, Aaron Sorkin, Rob Thomas. But here we have Kelley producing the show and writing, co-writing or polishing every script, while William Shatner and Candice Bergen prowl the soundstage in what should be a sleep-through victory lap. Instead they spring to life in what is surely their best material in years, an opportunity to create rather than manufacture a screen presence, and to bring their skills to bear in a holistic way.

That BL is half farce, half liberal polemic (a welcome notion during these last few Sorkinless years) may make the show seem like an ironic, cult-directed affair, but it is, in fact, the 15th most subscribed show by TiVo users, beating out every flavor of Law & Order and the Sorkin-free version of The West Wing. While it subverts -- like Green, like Kind of Blue -- it assimilates as well. It can act as a kind of tour guide to those mired in Medium and NCIS and Las Vegas, and because of that it may be the most important show on television.