"Calling Dr. Geiger " New York Times May 12, 1999 by B. Carter The wildly inventive mind of David E. Kelley was working overtime as the television season drew to a close, not only because he had to wrap up the seasons of "The Practice" on ABC and "Ally McBeal" on Fox, but also because he stepped in at the last minute to save his oldest surviving series, "Chicago Hope" on CBS. Kelley had ceased active participation in the production of that medical drama several seasons ago, but when the series faced imminent cancellation this spring, he went to CBS and offered his services to try to regenerate interest in the show. The result is a series finale, to be shown in two weeks, in which Kelley effectively returns the show to its roots. He brings back Mandy Patinkin as Dr. Jeffrey Geiger, puts him in charge of the hospital and has him fire almost every cast member who has been added since Kelley left the show. Patinkin, who won an Emmy for his work on "Chicago Hope" before a desire to spend more time with his family in New York led him to quit the series, is close to a deal that will bring him back for seven of the 13 episodes CBS is expected to order. Kelley has agreed to write the opening episode of the season next fall as well. That is in addition to his continuing work on both "Ally" and "The Practice." Still another show, a new detective series for ABC called "Snoops," will also be under his production company, though Kelley will not have day-to-day control over that one. He did manage to write the pilot, and ABC executives are said to be extremely enthusiastic about it. "The Practice," meanwhile, ended the season with a stunner of an episode that had several ABC executives calling it the best hour of television they had seen all year. Kelley tied up several loose ends from various cases, highlighted by a seasonlong decapitation murder case for which he came up with an especially provocative twist. Jeffrey Kramer, the co-executive producer of both "Ally' and "The Practice" said, "I really feel like the fans were taken care of in that episode." As for whether Kelley had planned all season long to pull things together in that way, Kramer said: "I don't think David's mind works that way, that far in advance. But who knows what goes on in there?"

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