Bosom Buddies, Redefined

What distinguishes the characters' friendship is their deep involvement in each other's lives. Alan often acts as Denny's conscience, and there's a willingness to rebuke each other when necessary, or absorb the other's anger, that's more commonly found in a marriage.

"They even enjoy how they drive each other mad; somehow, they feed off of it," Spader says. "They are exactly what they need, whether it be challenging and provoking the other person or supporting and nurturing them."

Shatner wonders if the relationship might be "atavistic."

"The prehistoric men would go out and try and find a mastodon with their spears and their rocks," Shatner begins, also speaking from California during a break in filming. (We've interviewed the man before, and so recognize a good quote is unspooling and stick with him.) "So Bob went left and George went right and Fred decided to go in the middle and stick the spear in the stomach of the mastodon and George had to help save Fred. It became a bonding thing that is not seen too much in our civilization today," Shatner continues, "but is seen a great deal in the military where combat becomes the activity of the moment.

"It's possible to rationalize this relationship [on "Boston Legal"] in the war of life that is being faced by the lawyers in this firm," Shatner concludes. "They are bonded in that kind of unity."

And theirs isn't boy-bonding. "Animal House," "Stripes," "Wedding Crashers," "Caddyshack" and so on feature the high jinks of adult adolescents, charming in their ramshacklery, irresistible to women with their "Who's your buddy?" ways.

Denny Crane and Alan Shore are men, secure in their masculinity, bound together like Capt. Jack Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin of Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander" books. Where Denny and Alan have their balcony, Jack and Stephen had their violin-and-cello duos; the two as close and harmonious as a dyad.

Bruno Heller calls such paired relationships "wish fulfillment" for male viewers.

Heller is the executive producer and co-creator of "Rome." Set in the time of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, the HBO series pivots on the aforementioned relationship of two Roman soldiers played by Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson.

"In real life, those kinds of intimate, close, loving relationships [between men] are very rare," Heller says from Rome, where he is shooting the show's upcoming season, set to begin in January. "Romantic love is relatively easy to find in the world. But to find a friend of that sort you can rely on through thick and thin . . . is rare. It's a great charge for men in watching that kind of friendship blossom. It's something that a lot of men wish they had but don't have with each other."

Stevenson's Titus Pullo is a soulful brute, a saturnalian legionnaire of huge appetites for wine, women and blood, who admires and is fiercely loyal to his friend. McKidd's Lucius Vorenus is Pullo's commanding officer, a professional soldier and honorable family man, at once appalled by Pullo's ways yet protective of him. In one scene, Vorenus defies Caesar and leaps into a gladiators' ring to save the condemned Pullo's life just as he is about to be killed.

Heller says it's refreshing to see such male-on-male hetero love affairs being well received by audiences. In the past, he says, such male bonding was acceptable only among groups of men, such as on a sports team or in movies like "Diner."