Dana Delany leads ABC's new 'Body of Proof'

TV shows, especially comedies, sometimes have a signature phrase that may be slightly amusing until it's repeated so often it's annoying. Rarely, though, do dramas come out with a line that's memorable.

ABC's “Body of Proof,” premiering Tuesday, March 29, has one that reverberates, even months after the initial viewing. The pilot was originally shown to critics last summer, then the network held the series in reserve. Still that line haunts. It happens when Dr. Megan Hunt (Dana Delany) talks about one of the two seismic events in her life — losing custody of her daughter. Hunt explains to her work partner, Peter Dunlop (Nicholas Bishop), that her ex-husband was awarded full custody “because a man who works for 18 hours a day is a good provider, and a woman who does the same is an absentee mother.”

“A lot of women are reacting to it,” Delany says of that line. “We all know someone (in this scenario).”

Hunt's other seismic event was, literally, a train wreck of an accident.

The pilot does a great job of showing how she came to be where she is. Highly educated, successful and doing the intricate work of a neurosurgeon, Hunt was arguing with her ex-husband on the phone while driving. After the accident, Hunt thought she was recovered. Yet when she returned to the operating room, her hands went numb. Hunt killed a patient on the operating table. Her career as a neurosurgeon was over. Still, she could apply her experience and education, so she became a medical examiner.

To help inform the character, Delany met with two female physicians at the top of their fields, a neurosurgeon and a medical examiner. She even attended an autopsy.

“I was more nervous going in because of what people said to me,” Delany says.

She didn't flinch as she watched the incision into the cranium. “Once they pull the face down, he stops being a person,” Delany says. This sort of research helps Delany as Dr. Hunt look believable while examining corpses. She picks up many clues, though, from the living. Of course she figures out who did it long before the cops. Yes, we have seen smart female medical examiners miles ahead of everyone else. It wasn't all that long ago that Jill Hennessy starred in “Crossing Jordan.”

Megan, though, is a different character, more elegant, better educated, richer and more seasoned. With that maturation comes a fraying of the reserves of patience. Just how much nonsense does she need to hear from people who think they have a clue when she's already solved the murder? Impressed by her abilities, her partner, former cop Dunlop, also deals with those she's infuriating.

“I'm kind of like her conscience,” Bishop says of his character. “I'm the only person besides her daughter who can look her in the eye and say, ‘You are out of line.'”

Bishop, whose work has mostly been in Australia, says he's learning a lot from Delany, who shone on “Desperate Housewives” and “China Beach.”

“She has been at it a long time and is so fantastic at what she does,” Bishop says. Bishop says people will invariably compare Megan to a female Dr. House “because she has such a bold personality and is such a strong figure and so smart. She is not afraid to annoy people.”

Among those she annoys is her boss, Dr. Kate Murphey (Jeri Ryan, “Boston Public”). But Murphey is hardly the type to be cowed.

“I consciously make the decision to play smart women,” Ryan says. “I was a National Merit Scholar. Playing dumb blondes is not interesting to me.”

And playing some of the other smart woman roles doesn't attract Delany. “I don't like lawyer roles,” Delany says. “I like medical roles. I like the guts — literally and figuratively. The body is miraculous. The fact that it works is a miracle.”

The characters feel real to both women. “Working around death, she very much lives her life to the fullest,” Ryan says of Dr. Murphey. “She is obviously very intelligent. She is the first woman chief of medical examiners in Philadelphia. She didn't get to where she is without ruffling some feathers.”

And the same would have to be said for Dr. Hunt. “Every bit of research I have done has reinforced my belief in the show,” Delany says.

<b>“Body of Proof”</b>

Debuts at 9 p.m. Tuesday, March 29, on ABC, <a href="http://www.abc.go.com/shows/body-of-proof" target="_blank">abc.go.com/shows/body-of-proof</a>