Julianna Marguilies returns to regular series TV next season for the first time since she left "ER" in 2000.

The star of Fox's "Canterbury Law" didn't come easily.

Margulies says that when she first got the pilot script for the series, in which she plays a defense attorney with major personal problems, "the 'O' was missing" from Fox on the cover page and she took that to mean the project was with the network's cable sibling, FX.

"So I was ... excited" because she was eager to do a cable series, she says. "Twelve, 13 episodes a year -- I was a shoo-in."

On the other hand, "22 episodes a year [the standard network season] is brutal for everyone," says Margulies, who thought "very long and hard and I kept saying no."

Then Fox chairman Peter Liguori moved in.

"He to me out for a few martinis and we had a great dinner and I said, 'I'm in,'" says Marguiles.