Posted at NY Times

So what is Mr. Bruckheimer doing for an encore this fall? "Skin," the first prime-time network series to take on what is euphemistically called the adult entertainment industry. And with a soupçon of Shakespeare, yet. "Skin" tells of the forbidden romance between a 17-year-old Mexican-Irish Romeo, whose father is the Los Angeles D.A., and a 16-year-old Jewish Juliet, whose father is a porn king. Or as the show's Web site sums it up: " `Skin' is about sex and race. `Skin' is about politics. And most of all, `Skin' is about skin: complexion, beauty, desire, attraction, obsession and prejudice in contemporary Los Angeles."

Such an assertion raises a philosophical conundrum: How much redeeming social value can be shoveled onto two hot bodies in a single Fox TV series? If the smartly made pilot is any indication, there are more than two hot bodies and a fair amount of message, including the prospect that Ron Silver's porn mogul may turn out to be more principled than Kevin Anderson's self-righteous lawman. Mr. Bruckheimer didn't get where he is by being ahead of the curve. He is the curve. His gut tells him, accurately, that porn is not just well within the American mainstream but overdue to be stripped of its plain brown wrapper in prime time