APPRECIATION : Adjourned! : The Road Ends for a Bit of TV History

“L.A. Law,” which ends its mostly distinguished eight-year run tonight, changed television series about attorneys the way “Hill Street Blues” altered shows about cops.

The traditional tones of TV lawyer series such as “The Defenders” and “Perry Mason” were, if not outdated, suddenly displaced by a rowdy, behind-the-scenes workplace drama in which the attorneys were as fallible and human--and sometimes just as dreadful--as they were, in their best moments, noble.

Overriding everything else was the writing. The words were like speeding bullets.

Action shows such as “Magnum, P.I.” and “The A-Team” had had their day, and now series like “L.A. Law” and “Moonlighting” were showing that great dialogue was infinitely more satisfying than car crashes.

At times, “L.A. Law,” which debuted in October, 1986, and went on to win four best drama Emmys--tying “Hill Street Blues”--broke totally from the aura of series about attorneys, combining important issues with the human comedy, and, at its best, pulling off a kind of legal circus atmosphere.

The show served notice right at the start that it was going to change things in television. A woman private eye checking out a divorce case returned to the law office, turned over some photographs of a couple and noted that they had engaged “in a sex act usually described by a two-digit number.”

That line was one of the most significant in television history because it was a major signal that new standards were about to turn traditional network policy on its ear.

By now, it is common knowledge that after its first five years or so, “L.A. Law,” while still better than most shows, had suddenly started to wobble uncertainly. It came back much stronger in concept and delivery this season--a fitting finale--but for a while, it was like trying to stay loyal to a baseball team that kept changing its lineup as free agents were picked up to replace old favorites. They may have been good, but it just wasn’t the same.

I am a dissenter, I guess, because I thought the famous fifth-season episode in which nasty lawyer Rosalind Shays (Diana Muldaur) was disposed of by having her step into an open elevator shaft was, while shocking and somehow wildly deserved, a creative misstep that seemed like a desperate audience-grabber.

And yet, like “Saturday Night Live,” “L.A. Law” was often at its best when it was most tasteless. Or just plain off the wall. There was never better humor on the show than the episode in which attorney Stuart Markowitz (Michael Tucker) learned the sexual secret--never revealed, by the way--of “The Venus Butterfly.”

However, amid all the important social issues, the zany goings-on, the dramatics of the courtroom and in the law office’s various conferences, I will, most of all, remember Benny.

Benny Stulwicz.

Some said he was simply retarded. Others used the term “developmentally disabled.” Like Susan Dey, Larry Drake--who portrayed Benny--was not a member of the original cast. But the addition of these two characters was utterly essential to the success of “L.A. Law” as they blended with such television originals as Corbin Bernsen’s sex-obsessed, cynical divorce lawyer.

Benny was another breakthrough for TV, showing a disabled person, warts and all, as a total human being. Drake was so good in the part that, at first, many viewers thought he really was retarded. But he wasn’t. The television academy recognized his work by giving him the first two Emmy acting awards won by a regular member of the cast. (Alfre Woodward won a guest performer Emmy for the pilot.)

The basic strengths of the series--the writing, directing, producing and ensemble playing of the irresistible characters--were underlined by the fact that “L.A. Law,” created by Steven Bochco and Terry Louise Fisher, actually won very few Emmys in acting categories. Aside from Drake and Woodard, only Jimmy Smits and Richard Dysart won Emmys for their performances.

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I think the show was never quite the same after Dey, Smits and Harry Hamlin left. Despite the abilities of the other performers, the departing actors were all essential leading characters with a special kind of magnetism. Alan Rachins, Jill Eikenberry, Blair Underwood, Amanda Donohoe and Michele Green were part of a pretty impressive group as well, but the turnover took its toll.

Just as I admired the impact of Benny’s character--with his childish innocence a perfect counterpoint to the hard-edged, cynical doings at the office--I had a similar feeling about Susan Ruttan, who, as Roxanne Melman, brought a kind of astonishing sense of level-headedness to the surroundings of her richer, more flamboyant colleagues.

There was a classic scene in which Ruttan walks in on Bernsen as he is engaging in sex with a blonde--and, matter-of-factly, without preaching, quickly takes charge, whisks him away and gets him into shape for a birthday party being held for him outside the room.

Despite its soap-opera-ish diversions, especially in its sixth and seventh seasons, when audiences were wondering about what had happened to this weekly classic, it is still on my all-time schedule. It was simply great enough for long enough.

And, as Bernsen says in a video of interviews with the cast distributed by NBC the other day, “L.A. Law” may have “antiquated a bit” but it reflected wonderfully the excesses and greed of the 1980s. Quite rightly, Bernsen notes that Bochco’s controversial new police series, “NYPD Blue,” deals with the dysfunctional society that now has followed.

“Certain shows capture an era,” said Bernsen.

“L.A. Law,” long a Thursday fixture, is still good, says Drake, but he concedes it is no longer appointment TV. Adds Eikenberry: “When we were at our hottest, people were talking about it” in offices across the country on Friday mornings.

It was a good run, and because it is indeed still better than most shows on TV, you could make a pretty fair case for continuing it for that reason alone. But the magic of those Friday morning water-cooler discussions is long gone, and it seems just about time to call it a day.

* “L.A. Law” airs at 10 tonight on NBC (Channels 4, 36 and 39).