It's David Kelley's World: You're Just Watching It

Wri

ters don't work very hard. It's a lot of chatting and eating and television watching and, most of all, talking about writing. On the other hand, corporate lawyers, despite all their negative traits, are pretty efficient. That's the only plausible explanation for how David Kelley--a former lawyer and the creator of Chicago Hope, Ally McBeal, The Practice, this fall's Snoops, an additional new half-hour version of Ally and two upcoming feature films, Lake Placid and Mystery, Alaska--is able to write the great majority of the scripts for his projects. Joyce Carol Oates, I still can't figure out.

This fall, network television will reflect one man's vision in a way it hasn't since the heyday of CBS founder William Paley. Not only is Kelley taking back the writing duties for the opening episodes of CBS's faltering Chicago Hope (the one show he had ceded to a team of writers) and creating two new shows (Ally for Fox and Snoops, a P.I. series for ABC), but nearly every network is copying him--having just about abandoned the sitcom, they're trying out his surrealism-specked, hour-long dramedy format. Basically, if you don't like Kelley, you'd better buy a good cable package. "It is a little frightening," says Kelley, 43, laughing.

The scariest part is that Kelley's efficiency is so quaintly low key. He's in the office from 9 to 6 (he's got to get home to his wife Michelle Pfeiffer and their two kids) and writes all his scripts with a Paper Mate on a yellow legal pad, usually finishing a first draft in two days. "He trusts himself creatively," says Steven Bochco, Kelley's mentor when he worked as a writer for L.A. Law. "He has pure talent, he has craft, and he has clearly found a way to tap into his imagination that doesn't take a lot of time. When you add to that a tremendous work ethic, that's a hell of a package." And, like most highly effective people, Kelley doesn't watch much TV.

The networks don't seem too worried that their Kelley shows are going to suffer from his increased fecundity. ABC Entertainment president Jamie Tarses, who will be depending on him for Snoops and The Practice, says, "We have David's guarantee that he's going to be there creating the footprint for [Snoops], getting it to the place where it's everything that he wants it to be. And frankly that's enough for us." CBS's Leslie Moonves agreed to renew Chicago Hope when Kelley offered to refocus the show, write a few episodes and oversee production. "For me," says Moonves, "that was good enough assurance."

That's because network execs know Kelley's probably going to wind up doing a lot more than he promised. In 1993, when he was only writing all 23 episodes of his one show, Picket Fences, he told TIME, "I don't plan to continue at this pace. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who factors longevity into his lifetime plan." He probably thought he meant that. But even earlier, as a busy lawyer who had never written before, he used the time while waiting for his court cases to be called to write the 1987 Judd Nelson movie, From the Hip.

And even though he'll have five shows on television, the new Ally won't have any new material. In a move never attempted by network television, Fox is going to "repurpose" previously aired episodes of Ally McBeal. Kelley will cut them down to half an hour centered on the comedy storylines and run them as a new, primetime series. He got the idea a month ago, when he was struggling to get his popular drama into the syndication market, where sitcoms do much better. "I have to admit, it's probably the first time in my life I've ever led with my business nose," he says.

It speaks both to the networks' faith in Kelley and their desperation that Fox would take his clever syndication idea and use it to plug up its schedule. "The rest of the world is running South Park all week," says Fox Entertainment president Doug Herzog. "This is the way people watch TV now. We're no longer in control. The viewer is in control." Maybe one day. But for now, Kelley is.