You Can’t Always Get What You Want

David E. Kelley thought he did everything right and wound up feeling let down anyway.

ABC premiered his latest series--a drama about defense lawyers titled “The Practice,” starring Dylan McDermott--in March to generally glowing reviews. Test audiences had given the show high marks, and there was no negative feedback from the network.

The series performed only moderately well during a six-week trial run in the “NYPD Blue” time period but, despite those inconclusive results, top ABC executives reportedly indicated that the program might replace “PrimeTime Live” in the 10 p.m. Wednesday slot in the fall.

Yet when the smoke cleared from the network lineup announcements last month, “The Practice” found itself situated Saturdays at 10 p.m.--one of TV’s most difficult time periods in which to establish a new program, as ABC discovered last season by striking out with another acclaimed drama, “Relativity.”

The situation underscores various considerations, political and other, that go into setting a prime-time schedule and demonstrates that, in the world of television, the cream doesn’t necessarily rise to the top.

For Kelley, the Emmy-winning creator of “Chicago Hope,” “Picket Fences” and a new program about a female attorney, “Ally McBeal,” which premieres in September on Fox, the emotional roller-coaster ride over where his show would end up proved eye-opening.

“If I’ve learned anything, a few years ago I might have thought if you make the best show you can make, the other stuff will take care of itself, and maybe that’s not true,” the producer said during an interview in his office on the 20th Century Fox lot. “Maybe the politics of it all really predominate more than they should.”

Specifically, ABC News and its powerful anchors, among them “PrimeTime’s” Diane Sawyer, wield considerable influence, despite the belief in some quarters that the network has greater potential with dramatic fare than with newsmagazines.

“We were led to believe that whatever happened at the end of the day, we were going to be the happy ones--maybe at somebody else’s expense, whether it was ‘PrimeTime Live’ or anyone else,” Kelley recalled.

With “PrimeTime’s” slot taken out of the mix, 10 p.m. scheduling options were limited. ABC previously watched NBC’s “ER” slaughter “Murder One” on Thursdays and thus opted to keep news there; “Monday Night Football” eliminated another night, and the network decided not to tamper with two of its most popular programs, Tuesday’s “NYPD Blue” and Friday’s “20/20,” or with its Sunday night movie.

That left Saturday, the night TV is watched the least because many younger viewers are apt to be out. When the word finally came, ABC officials didn’t pretend they brought good news, perhaps because so many TV analysts have labeled Saturday, as the producer put it, “the death zone for this type of dramatic show.”

CBS’ Chuck Norris action series, “Walker, Texas Ranger,” draws strong ratings playing at 10 p.m. Saturday but resembles the sort of escapist fare that achieved popularity there in the past. More realistic dramas, meanwhile, have struggled, and ABC in particular has been unable to establish much audience that night for several years.

The network did hold its own with “The Commish,” a conventional police show, but last enjoyed any real success on Saturdays in the mid-1980s with “The Love Boat,” a far cry from “The Practice.”

“No one is telling us right now about a bright side,” Kelley said. “When we were put on Saturday nights, no executive at ABC came to us and said, ‘Notwithstanding your disappointment, here’s why we think it can work.’ There was never any such optimism even proffered. The only thing communicated to us from them was ‘Sorry.’ ”

Unveiling its prime-time lineup last month, ABC did express admiration for the program as well as faith in its commercial prospects on Saturday. That’s what networks do, after all, when trying to wangle money from media buyers. (ABC officials declined to discuss their scheduling decision for this story.)

Others involved with the series are more understated in appraising its chances.

“Obviously, it’s disappointing and frustrating when you feel you’ve been relegated to a time period which makes it awfully difficult to attract the kind of audience the network is interested in attracting,” said Sandy Grushow, president of 20th Century Fox Television, the show’s production company. “The issue is, who’s home at 10 o’clock on Saturday night, and what are they likely to watch?”

Seeking to address that dilemma, Kelley will slightly alter the show’s creative approach in response to his current time period, while still hoping “The Practice” will be eligible to move elsewhere should ABC choose to revise its schedule.

“We have to adjust the show--not so much the content, but the storytelling--to be more viable to a Saturday night audience,” he said. “You don’t get much habitual viewing. You have to assume going in a lot of people tuning in didn’t see the last three shows, so the episodes will be more self-contained.

“The character arcs of relationships and love interests and so forth will continue, because the audience can pick that up quickly. You don’t have to know the back story completely, and you can still figure out that these two are a couple.”

Seven new episodes left over from last season will be scattered throughout the second year, though some re-shooting will have to be done because Lara Flynn Boyle (“Twin Peaks”) is joining the cast and might otherwise be conspicuous by her absence.

The entire schedule-setting process possessed some irony for Kelley, as CBS later moved his returning series “Chicago Hope” to Wednesdays, meaning that the hour he coveted for “The Practice” went to the wrong show on a different network. Fox’s “Ally McBeal” will follow “Melrose Place” on Mondays.

Kelley hopes critical support and perhaps industry recognition will provide some help but harbors no illusions about “The Practice” achieving any sort of immediate ratings breakthrough.

In the long term, he said, “I like to think if we write and do the kind of material that excites us, hopefully there will be a constituency for it that will allow it to thrive.” As for what ultimately captures an audience, Kelley added, “I’m just as clueless as anybody else.”

The producer also admitted that some of his brethren may “listen to me and want to smack me” because the show is at least getting a chance, unlike the many programs that don’t. Despite his disappointment, then, the challenge inevitably comes back to trying to tell engaging stories.

“We’re not throwing in the towel,” Kelley said. “We’re still going to try and do our best work.”

‘A few years ago I might have thought if you make the best show you can make, the other stuff will take care of itself, and maybe that’s not true.’