David E. Kelley, who explored the dramedy form in "Ally McBeal" -- and won an Emmy for comedy as a result -- isn't exactly sure how to characterize the increasingly comic "Boston Legal," the ABC show he spun off from that Emmy-winning drama "The Practice."

But he thinks "you could call it a comma."

He might want to dispense with punctuation altogether, though, since he notes that when he worked on "L.A. Law," he could write 48 minutes of every hour, and now it's down to 41, thanks to "commercial encroachment."

Sounding more businesslike than he has in the past, Kelley's floating ideas like "co-producing" with a sponsor in the hopes of getting a minute or two back for the words.

Some of us smell a deal in the works.