I'm always a teensy bit suspish though, when a show's principle characters are made up of actors who are inextricably identified by previous roles. Refreshingly, this is not a problem in two thirds of the cases that Raising The Bar presents. Jane Kaczmarek (ie the mom from Malcolm in the Middle) is totally convincing as the ball-busting judge (even if it isn't a huge leap from her previous character). Gloria Reuben is shockingly un-annoying as a non-doctor. Sadly, the man on whose shoulders the show rests, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, is its weakest element. Not only has he failed to convince me that he's anyone other than Zack Morris all grown up (despite Bochco's previous attempts to redeem him and make him into a credible actor on NYPD Blue), he just plain sucks in the role of obnoxiously idealistic public defender Jerry Kellerman. The character is, I learned, based on a real live public defender, David Feige, who wrote a book about his experiences called Indefensible and consulted on the show. So there's at least some measure of cred. I learned lots more scintillating facts during a conference call with MPG, including that he's a got a sarcastic sense of humor, looooves the sound of his own voice, and only gets his hair did when he's on a job (which goes a long way toward explaining why the 'do he has on RTB is so damned shaggy). Here's an abridged version of our chat:

TWOP: I wanted to talk to you a little bit more about how you prepared yourself for this role. You mentioned that you read the book [Indefensible], but did you get a chance to actually trail public defenders or get any hands-on experience as far as that goes?

MPG: What do you mean prepare? I just grew my hair out and was ready to go. That's usually what I do. I don't change my acting, I just change my look, it's a lot easier that way. For this role, once I met David Feige, I read his book, I knew he was going to be a producer on the show as well as one of the writers and technical advisor and roughly from the pilot to the beginning of this season, I did about a week's worth of being an intern for the Bronx defenders office and I got to do night court, meet with clients. I actually got to go to Manhattan's DA's office and speak with one of the head DA's there as well. We just did that to see the system but for me I stayed more on the public defender's side and got to go behind the court house where the clients are before they get arraigned. So I did quite a bit of excessive research with this role.

TWOP: So any epiphanies or revelations when you were going through that experience?

MPG: That I'm glad that... hopefully, I'll never have to go through this system myself. Even so, I think I would fair much better than some of the clients back there because that's what it comes down to, it comes down to how many resources you actually have. Resources equal how fast you get through the system. So is it a perfect system? No, in my eyes it's not perfect. It's what we have and what we have to work with. But Jerry doesn't see it that way. The system is broken and he's not trying to fix it, he's just saying that since it's broken, this is the way I am going to deal with it, by giving my clients the best defense they can possibly have, regardless of what they have done because they are all humans, they are all individuals and they deserve that.

TWOP: One last question, since you did bring it up: the hair. I was thinking about when No Country for Old Men came out and the Coen brothers said that Javier Bardem's hair was sort of like a character in and of itself. I was thinking the same thing when I saw your mop. Do you think that had some sort of bearing on your character? Or the development of your character? What sort of role does that play?

MPG: I don't think we started off as having it be a character in and of itself but it has becomes sort of a polarizing discussion as well or sort of a polarizing element of a discussion. You might hate it or love it. I know my wife absolutely hates it. I know Steven Bochco hates it and Steven Bochco's wife loves it. It's become a very Jerry thing this hair of his. Who knows where it is going to go from here but you know, it kind of goes with the character. Steven wanted me to be as far removed from John Clark Jr. and NYPD Blue as possible. He asked David Feige if public defenders could have long hair and he said of course. He said he had hair my length at one point in his career as well. It works for the character because he is a bit of an individual that doesn't conform to the system and the hair is a symbol in a way. More so than that, I don't think its even conscious for Jerry, I think that he doesn't care about his appearance, he doesn't care about his clothes. It takes too much effort and he'd rather put his effort into his clients and into fighting the system.

TWOP: What conditioner do you use?

MPG: [Laughs] What conditioner do I use? Something that the hair people give me, I could care less. There was a reason my hair was long too begin with: I don't get my haircut, unless it's on a set. I refuse to pay to get a haircut because I think it's a waste of time. If I can't do it myself, why do it? That's why my hair got progressively longer. It has been two years since I have been off of Blue and every show or character I've played after that wanted me to have longer hair. For [John From] Cincinnati, it worked for that. A pilot before this, my hair was a little long as well. It's all worked for each character as well that I've played in the last two years.