'Practice' skirmishes with ABC

By Lisa de Moraes
Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Intense fighting continued to the west last week.

David E. Kelley is pretty miffed with ABC for having moved "The Practice" from Sunday nights to Mondays. Advertiser library photo

Kelley has penned an episode that will star thespian Leslie Moonves, who when not playing himself on various TV shows — which he does about once a year — is the president of ABC rival CBS.

Last week, ABC announced it had reshuffled episodes of "The Practice" so as to broadcast the "Les is More" episode on April 7, which happens to be the night Moonves' network will air the sure-to-be-highly-rated NCAA men's basketball championship game.

Last year's game averaged nearly 24 million viewers.

We wondered how Moonves felt about the fact that his own network is going to crush what will possibly be his best performance of Himself in his career. We called him for comment.

Moonves was much too busy, what with development season being in full throttle. But we did hear from his spokesman.

"It's pretty shocking that an episode featuring an actor with the resume of Mr. Moonves would be broadcast out of sweeps," he joked.

ABC's announcement of its counterattack strategy revealed more details about the episode.

If you were wondering — we certainly were — how a legal drama set in Boston could handle a story line about the Los Angeles-based head of a TV network being taken hostage by a deranged woman who then tries to sell the whole thing to CBS as a reality show ending with the possible execution of Moonves, here's how: According to ABC, this troubled woman, played by the stunning Andie MacDowell — you didn't think that the ruggedly handsome Moonves was going to let himself be kidnapped by a homely deranged woman, did you? — hires the firm's Jimmy Berluti (Michael Badalucco) "to handle a peculiar negotiation — which involves Les Moonves — on her behalf."

ABC confirmed that Sandy Grushow, who oversees another ABC rival, the Fox network, has a cameo on the show as himself.

No sign of any suits from ABC appearing on the show. Nor any from NBC, despite previous reports that Kelley might offer NBC Entertainment chief Jeff Zucker a role.

Kelley is pretty miffed with ABC for having moved "The Practice" from Sunday nights to Mondays, where it was crushed by Fox's reality hit "Joe Millionaire." We know this because not long after that move, Kelley suggested to trade paper Variety that it would be folly "to try to guess what's in (ABC execs') heads because that would start with the presumption that there's something" in them.

Since "Joe" wrapped, "The Practice" has been still limping along, wedged between two low-rated freshman dramas, one of which — "Veritas" — the network has pulled.

A spokeswoman for Kelley recently insisted that the "Les is More" episode has no bearing on Kelley's relationship with ABC, or with CBS or Fox. Kelley is doing his next series for Moonves at CBS and Grushow, in addition to overseeing the Fox network, heads 20th Century Fox TV, where Kelley's company is based.

The spokeswoman said that the episode is only about examining a topical phenomenon — which, she said, is entirely consistent with the history of "The Practice."

That topical phenomenon is the proliferation of reality TV series, which Kelley spoke about recently when he was feted by the Writers Guild of America. He said that while he believes than some studio and network execs would rather make a show with an Aaron Sorkin "than have lunch with the next contestant on 'How to Marry a Terrorist,' " "those voices have gone silent for now."

But by the time the episode airs, much of the reality programming on ABC that made Kelley nuts will be gone. "I'm a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here!" has wrapped, the network has pulled "The Family" and "Profiles from the Front Line" and it will dump the final two episodes of "Are You Hot?" onto a Saturday night next month.