There's a sweet and telling moment, near the beginning of NECN's new documentary about Deval Patrick, when the governor sits behind his desk and signs his first bill into law. It's about as dull a piece of legislation as they come -- establishing a panel to oversee the Department of Public Health -- but Patrick loops his signature with boyish pride.
"This is how a bill is made, boys and girls!" he announces. "Thank you. That's it! It's a law!"
It's a nice example of what access can provide, and "The Education of Deval Patrick," which premieres tonight at 8, provides a few such humanizing details as it watches the governor make the transition from private to public life. Political reporter Alison King interviews Patrick repeatedly in his Milton home, his corner office, his magazine-quality Berkshires getaway, and the government-issue Cadillac that became a quick symbol of his learning curve.
King is fortunate that events provided her with a ready-made narrative arc, as Patrick's heady coronation (and clear self-satisfaction) gave way to a series of missteps: the Cadillac, the $12,000 drapes he ordered for his office, the call he made to Citibank on behalf of mortgage company Ameriquest . It's nothing close followers of Massachusetts politics don't already know. But seeing Patrick handle them in sequence is a bit like watching time-lapse photography.
He begins by chafing at the criticism, albeit mildly, behind the closed doors of his office. Just after a tense press conference about the car, he tells King that some people in his administration questioned the decision, but "I just can't go there. . . . It's not worth the time." After a few more public floggings, he's admitting publicly that "we screwed up" and smiling tensely at King in the back of his car, talking about "a fascinating week."
King asks repeatedly for self-reflection, and Patrick indulges, to a point. "You can spend all day . . . organizing yourself around the politics of that building, and that's not job one for me," he says on that same car ride, though he later does an about-face and hires some more politically savvy staff. His wife Diane speaks candidly, too, telling King that she went public with her depression so as not to look ashamed of her disease and talking about her rush to return to the public spotlight.
But the documentary's strongest moments come with the side details: the flourish of a pen, the phone call Patrick takes from his daughter in the middle of a press conference, the instruction he gives two young boys at a public event -- when you meet somebody new, stand up and shake his hand. When it comes to facing the cameras themselves, Patrick turns cordial but stiff; he's guarded and ever-smiling. We never see him lose his temper, snip at his staff, or hang his head. Even administrations that don't start out press-savvy know when to turn off the microphones.
Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com. For more on TV, go to www.viewerdiscretion.net