‘Practice’ already practicing for fall

There will be no magazine covers, special retrospective shows or a sit-down with Oprah for the cast of “The Practice,” which ends its eight-year run on ABC on Sunday, to be replaced by a new spinoff series in the fall.

But then, anyone who’s watched the show the last few weeks would probably assume creator David E. Kelley had moved on already. For the last few weeks, “The Practice” has already felt like a spinoff, with dominant story lines being assigned to the high-end corporate lawyers of Crane, Poole and Schmidt -- the center of the new, so-far untitled legal drama -- while the “practice” of the original series -- Young, Frutt and Berluti -- has struggled to stay afloat.

“For all intents and purposes, ‘The Practice’ ended last year when Bobby Donnell closed the lights,” said Michael Badalucco, who played Jimmy Berluti for the show’s entire run. “When we came back this year, six people weren’t there and we had to transition. What the character of Alan Shore (played by James Spader) has represented is the antithesis of what ‘The Practice’ stood for. ‘The Practice’ as we knew it ended last year.”

Donnell, played by Dylan McDermott for seven seasons, returns to help his former colleagues close the doors to the offices of Young, Frutt and Berluti on Sunday’s final episode. Meanwhile, Shore and his boss (William Shatner) will appear before newly appointed judge, and former Donnell colleague, Eugene Young (Steve Harris), giving viewers another glimpse into the world of the series spinoff, which will air on ABC in the fall.

“It was just a natural progression to use the end of this series to morph into the new one,” Kelley said during a break the last week of production on the set. “What we’ve actually been doing is a slow pilot.”

Just as the lawyers of Young, Frutt and Berluti toiled to keep their firm open -- after Shore was fired and successfully sued them -- Kelley has fought all season to invigorate “The Practice” after ABC unexpectedly cut the show’s licensing fee last year, forcing him to fire six cast members, including McDermott, its star.

“It is rewarding for everybody,” Kelley said. “At this time last year, we were pretty much given up for dead. But to be here and have a prodigy live on is rewarding.”

In large part, that prodigy is the character of Shore, a morally deficient but brilliant and humorous lawyer who was created specifically with Spader in mind and will be the lead of the spinoff.

Kelly set up the new show as early as midseason, having Shore fired from the original practice for his questionable legal maneuvers and winding up employed by the hip firm headed by Denny Crane (Shatner). Viewers seemed to like this new story line, which led ABC executives to tell Kelley they preferred a spinoff for the fall instead of another season of “The Practice.” Kelley, who said the show “felt more original if we played it from the Alan Shore prism,” agreed.

That left Spader, a film actor who had signed up for one season of television, facing the offer of his own show. Shatner, Rhona Mitra, who plays Tara Wilson, and Lake Bell, who plays Sally Heep, will also return.

“All of my work in movies is based on knowing what the ending is,” Spader said. “In this case, there is a lot that is unknown, and that is what interests me. I’ve played a lot of good guys and a lot of bad guys. I’ve done it straight. I’ve done humorous and David wanted a mix of all of that. He wanted the character to be conflicted and conflicting, which is what is intriguing to me. Even when I play bad guys, I like to find something compelling in them.”

But Shore is not the only lawyer who will have a new beginning. Kelley hopes to occasionally bring Eugene Young back into the courtroom as a judge. Harvard alum Jamie Stringer (Jessica Capshaw) will join the legal shingle Jimmy Berluti (Badalucco) put out in his old neighborhood to help his friends and family. Although Kelley has enjoyed creating a new world for Berluti, which has included a recurring role for an adversary played by Vincent Pastore, Kelley is not certain if that story line will continue in the spinoff.

Meanwhile, Ellenor Frutt (Camryn Manheim) will move back to her hometown to ponder her next career move and will probably have an after-life in a “Practice” spinoff for ABC in January that writer Dan O’Shannon of “Frasier” is creating.

At its peak, Badalucco said, “The Practice” was a thinking man’s show, a legal drama that explored all sides of an issue, from rape and murder to abortion and the death penalty, prompting water-cooler chatter across America the next day.

“The lawyers of ‘The Practice’ worked for the underdog, the disenfranchised people,” said Manheim. “The people who watched it felt like it was about them and they wanted to know there were people out there like us who would champion their cause.”

During its long run, “The Practice” earned two Emmys for outstanding drama series (1998, 1999), two Emmys for outstanding supporting actor roles for Badalucco and Manhiem, and three Golden Globes. In a noteworthy streak, five guest actors and three guest actresses have taken home Emmys for their work on the show during the past six years, including Alfre Woodard who won last year.

“A guest shot is really a recognition for the show and the writing,” Woodard said. “An actor can’t create something out of nothing from popping into the set for a week or two. When I watched ‘The Practice,’ I always felt like my mind would be exercised. You don’t really zone out in front of ‘The Practice.’ ”

Betty White, who had worked with Kelley previously on “Ally McBeal” and “Lake Placid,” said “I literally fell off the couch” when she received the call that Kelley wanted to cast her in a three-episode arc, which set up the irreversible rift between Shore and his righteous bosses at Young, Frutt and Berluti. White played Catherine Piper, a nosy, mean woman with a penchant for blackmail.

“For somebody who’s been in the funny business all her life, to go [onto a dramatic show], sometimes they take themselves rather seriously and you end up feeling like an outsider,” White said. “But that’s not how it was there. I had so much fun. It has been my favorite show for years, and I’ll miss the regular people like mad. But it’s an interesting way of moving on and changing but keeping a sense of reference, the orientation for the audience. It’s an interesting twist.”

Of all of his creations, the spinoff will resemble “L.A. Law” the most, said Kelley, a lawyer who began his television career writing for that show and then moved on to create “Chicago Hope” and “Picket Fences.” Although Kelley will write some of the scripts and supervise production, he will not be the executive producer.

“The new show will be much more reality-based than ‘Ally McBeal’ but not nearly as gritty as ‘The Practice,’ ” Kelley said. “It will be comedic in tone, the cases will be more civil than criminal, and it would be more of a relationship piece. If it thrives, it will be in the inter-relationships of the characters. Next season, we’re delving into the personal life of Alan Shore more, at least, as much as he’s willing to reveal of himself. He’s always going to be a bit cagey when it comes to letting people figure out who he is.”

Ending “The Practice” on the heels of “Friends” and “Fraiser” does not seem to bother Kelley.

“ ‘Friends’ is a phenomenon of a different league,” he said. “I don’t delude myself into believing we deserve to go out with the same fanfare. We’re probably going out with more noise than the whimper we came in with at midseason with six episodes.”