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of ABC's 'Practice'
Cutting costs of Sunday drama--maybe reviving it
By Toni Fitzgerald
Even imaginary businesses are subject to layoffs these days.
In a shocker that rivals his most creative plot twists, David E. Kelley said yesterday that six stars from his ABC show “The Practice,” including series mainstay Dylan McDermott, will not return next season.
Kelley blamed creative and economic differences for the decision. Certainly money played a big role.
Though ABC renewed the sputtering show, whose adult 18-49 ratings dropped by a third when the network switched it from Sunday to Monday nights, it halved “The Practice’s” $6.5 million licensing fee.
Thus original cast members McDermott (Bobby Donnell), Lara Flynn Boyle (Helen Gamble), Kelli Williams (Lindsay Dole) and Lisa Gay Hamilton (Rebecca Washington), along with more recent additions Marla Sokoloff (Lucy Hatcher) and Chyler Leigh (Clare Wyatt), have been downsized.
Kelley complained all last season of being slighted after ABC moved his Emmy-winning drama from the cushy Sundays at 10 to the bitter Mondays at 9, where its audience bled.
He questioned the intelligence of ABC executives and whined to just about anyone who would listen about how badly his show had been mishandled.
It makes one almost wonder if this casting move is perhaps a thumb at ABC, a way to say, "See, I can change everything and still get an audience."
In fact, four cast members will remain from last season, though all have primarily functioned in supporting roles. Kelley says that new cast members will be added, but did not specify how many or how soon.
Kelley, ever the showman, ended last season with main character Bobby leaving his law firm, his wife and his baby.
In TV world, such drastic cliffhangers are usually resolved within an episode or two of the series’ return.
No one expected Bobby to leave forever, especially since five of the six slashed cast members, excluding Flynn Boyle, appeared at the ABC upfront presentation last week.
“Due to economic and creative realities, many key people will not be returning, including Dylan,” Kelley said in a statement released yesterday.
“It hurts, professionally and personally. This is perhaps the finest group of actors and people one could ever hope to work with; I hope for all of them to recur if possible, and if I'm lucky, I'll get to work with them on future projects as well. I'm indebted to each and every one of them.”
For much of the spring, since “The Practice” moved to Mondays in late January, it didn’t even look like the show would return. Kelley penned an episode of the show that slammed reality television during this time, which was widely perceived as a shot at ABC and its reality-heavy spring schedule.
When Kelley wrote the season finale, he entitled it “Goodbye.” It seemed like a sure series ender, until ABC decided at the last minute to renew the seventh-season show, apparently due to weak drama development for fall.
But when ABC issued the renewal, it did so with a caveat. Production costs had to be severely cut down. The easiest way to do that was to hack some contracts.
While none of the stars made anywhere near the range of the top-dollar “Friends” or “Frasier” stars from NBC, slicing six contracts helped Kelley’s bottom line.
He’s apparently looking at this as a creative challenge. In fact, the cuts reportedly were Kelley’s idea, with his logic being that long-running shows like NBC’s “Law & Order” and “ER” have survived and even thrived in the midst of cast flux.
Several of the series’ original stars will return, including supporting actress and actor Emmy winners Camryn Manheim and Michael Badalucco. Steve Harris, who has been with the show since the first season, and Jessica Capshaw, added last season, also will be back.
McDermott will return for a four-episode stint to begin the season and, of course, fill in the holes left by the mass exodus.
It’s possible that some of the other cast members could recur as well, though no decisions have been made.
May 20, 2003© 2003 Media Life
-Toni Fitzgerald is a staff writer for Media Life.
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