9 Best David E. Kelley TV Shows, Ranked
David E. Kelley has been producing hit TV shows for 40 years now, but he even surprised himself when he won the 1999 Primetime Emmy Awards for both best drama and best comedy, in recognition of The Practice and Ally McBeal.
Looking back at that moment 20 years later, Kelley told Variety he thought he was being beckoned back to the stage to cede The Practice’s best-drama trophy to The Sopranos, not to receive another of the awards show’s top prizes.
“Just being around David at that time was thrilling,” Marty Adelstein, the producer’s former agent, told the magazine. “His shows were something people talked about the next day.”
And TV critic Robert Bianco said that Kelley’s TV shows “had this embrace of eccentricity in a medium that had been very staid. You had a very strict line between comedies and dramas at the time, and Kelley blended those lines together in all of his shows.”
Kelley is once again blending those lines with his newest creation, Margo’s Got Money Troubles. The Apple TV comedy-drama, based on the Rufi Thorpe novel of the same name, stars Elle Fanning as a recent college dropout and aspiring writer who finds, ahem, creative means to pay her mounting bills.
How will Margo’s compare to Kelley’s past work? Below, we’re ranking — completely subjectively, of course — his best TV shows so far.
Boston Public
Kelley is known for Boston-based legal dramas — The Practice, Ally McBeal, and a show literally called Boston Legal — but this drama found another Beantown workplace to explore. The result was an engaging saga set at a Boston high school, with Chi McBride’s principal trying to keep order amongst the school’s student body and its faculty.
Boston Legal
James Spader and William Shatner both took home Emmy gold for their performances in this Practice spinoff, which starred the actors as an odd couple running another Boston legal practice together. As it turned out, much of the show involved Spader and Shatner try to out-smarm each other, and no one held that interplay in contempt.
The Lincoln Lawyer
Michael Connelly’s novels about criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller had already reached the screen as a decent Matthew McConaughey film, but Kelley saw further potential in the stories. And with the charismatic Manuel Garcia-Rulfo taking on the role of the titular automobile-bound attorney, TV’s The Lincoln Lawyer has become a big hit for Netflix.
The Practice
By the mid-1990s, Kelley was certainly in The Practice of balancing comedy and drama, though this Boston-set legal series leaned harder toward the latter than spinoff Boston Legal did. With a cast that included Dylan McDermott, Steve Harris, and Camryn Manheim, The Practice showed that criminal cases don’t always have easy answers.
Picket Fences
As a legal drama blending both topical issues and preposterous phenomena, Picket Fences really swung for the… well, you know. Starring Tom Skerritt and Kathy Baker as a Wisconsin sheriff and his town-doctor wife, the show had an enviable batting average in its four-season run, winning the Emmys’ Outstanding Drama category two years in a row.
Chicago Hope
Though it was soon overshadowed by a certain other Chicago-based medical drama — one that premiered a day later — Chicago Hope nevertheless had viewers waiting for each dose. Mandy Patinkin, Héctor Elizondo, Christine Lahti, and future NCIS costars Mark Harmon and Rocky Carroll played doctors and hospital administrators saving lives and grappling with ethical issues.
L.A. Law
The one show on this list Kelley didn’t create, L.A. Law gave the producer a chance to work under Steven Bochco, whom he called a “great teacher as well as a great boss” in a 2017 TV Insider interview. Tied with a few other TV shows for the most Outstanding Drama Series Emmy wins, this filmography entry followed attorneys navigating social changes as the 1980s gave way to the 1990s.
Ally McBeal
The dancing babies, the unisex bathrooms, the debates about feminism — Ally McBeal had it all as one of the most headline-making shows of the 1990s. Calista Flockhart played a lawyer navigating a complicated love life in this comedy-drama. “One day it’s tragedy, the next day you’re laughing,” Kelley told TV Insider. “You should be able to carve out a series where there’s room for all of that.”
Big Little Lies
Movie stars like Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, and Meryl Streep aligned on the small screen for this Emmy-winning, once-limited series of which fans can’t get enough. Based on a Liane Moriarty novel, the series follows women reaching a breaking point — and banding in solidarity — in Monterey, California. And devotees don’t need to throw a Laura Dern-level tantrum: A third season is in the works.
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