Oscar winner
Richard Dreyfuss made his long-awaited weekly TV series bow in CBS' weekly, 60-minute
The Education of Max Bickford. In the tradition of Dreyfuss' theatrical feature Mr. Holland's Opus, the series focuses on an irascibly liberal-minded but rigidly tradition-bound professor of literature at a prestigious women's college. Passed over for a promotion in favor of his former student (and lover) Andrea Haskell (
Marcia Gay Harden), Max Bickford (
Richard Dreyfuss) begins to wonder if his 23 years of steadfast academic service were truly worth it. All but deserted by his best friend Steve -- who has been reinvented as "Erica" (
Helen Shaver) after a sex change -- and his Gen-X daughter Lyla (
Katee Sackhoff), who happens to attend the college where Max teaches, our hero finds himself drawing closer to his 13-year-old son Lester (Eric Ian Goldberg), a chip off the old block if ever there was one. The producers describe the series as "a drama about a man who realizes life has passed him by and has to re-examine a lot of his assumptions." Debuting September 23, 2001,
The Education of Max Bickford was one of the few new series of the 2001-2002 season whose premiere was not delayed by coverage of the World Trade Center bombing. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide