N.Y. Confidential

PASADENA, Calif. - David Milch, co-creator of NYPD Blue, felt stifled after seven years of sweating perps and dredging up new, angst-ridden crises for his most vivid creation, Detective Andy Sipowicz.

He also wanted to step out of the shadow of his mentor, Steven Bochco, who had first taken a chance on Milch for the series Hill Street Blues. So, after several heart attacks, countless scripts and more cups of coffee than he cares to count, Milch took early retirement from NYPD Blue and tried his hand at his own show.

The result is Big Apple, Milch's sprawling saga of New York beat cops, Russian gangsters and FBI agents who come together over the murder of a young Manhattan call girl.

Milch produced Big Apple (tonight on VTV and Thursday on KIRO-CBS, at 10 p.m. both nights) with one-time Miami Vice executive producer Anthony Yerkovich. But Big Apple has little in common with either Miami Vice or NYPD Blue. Big Apple has multiple, ongoing storylines and tells those stories from different perspectives.

"And if you've seen NYPD Blue, you know it don't do it like that," Milch said wryly, the former Yale University literature professor self-consciously playing with his syntax.

"One of the aspects of [Big Apple] is the disjunction between the agendas of various law-enforcement agencies, compounded by the more usual disjunction that we all recognize between criminals. As is often the case with these kinds of investigations, there are collateral cases within the larger investigation."

In other words, the show is complicated and will require more work from the viewer than the usual gun play and car chases of standard TV-cop fare. The potential payoff, though, could be as rewarding as Law & Order.

Big Apple features a raft of familiar faces in supporting roles -- David Strathairn, Titus Welliver and Michael Madsen, among others -- but the casting of the lead character, that of a world-weary, tough-as-nails New York City police detective, was a bit of an eye-popper.

Milch settled on Ed O'Neill, the lowbrow lout and family guy from Married with Children. "Ed O'Neill is a revelation," Milch said without a hint of irony.

O'Neill, who has a background in New York theatre, is comfortable with Milch's habit of rewriting scenes at the last moment. He got used to that during his Married É with Children days.

"This is easier in the sense that what I'm given is very, very good, and there's no audience," he said. "If I make a mistake, and I just got [the script changes], it doesn't bother me."

The scheduling of Big Apple is CBS' move to round out its new, improved Thursday-night schedule.

Ever since Kramer first began raiding Jerry Seinfeld's fridge on Thursday nights 10 years ago, NBC's lineup of Friends, Seinfeld and ER has been unbeatable. Even with the retirement of Seinfeld, the emergence of Will & Grace allowed NBC to maintain its ratings chokehold on the night.

All that changed last month with Survivor. For years, CBS had finished a distant third on Thursdays, behind NBC and behind ABC's cult game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Then, in a bold move that paid off with big ratings, CBS decided to run Survivor II: The Australian Outback head to head against Friends. The network also moved C.S.I. -- arguably the only genuine hit among this season's new series -- to the 9 p.m. slot opposite Will & Grace.

NBC has already responded to Big Apple's move into the 10 p.m. time slot. It had planned to run a rerun of ER this Thursday, but has since decided to air a new episode.

For once, Canadian viewers come out ahead. The Canadian rights to both Friends and Survivor are owned by Global, which means Global can air the two shows back to back on Thursday nights, so fans of both shows don't have to choose one over the other. And the Canadian rights to both ER and Big Apple are owned by CTV, which will keep ER where it is but will air Big Apple two days early, beginning tonight on VTV.

Big Apple owes its distinctive look -- harsh, white light reflecting off the windows of glass towers, ice and snow everywhere -- to its New York locations.

Milch's decision to film in New York is unusual for television. With the exception of Law & Order, most New York-set series, including NYPD Blue, are filmed on backlots in Los Angeles. Filming in Los Angeles is more convenient and less expensive than filming in New York. NYPD Blue does film some scenes in New York, but only for three weeks during a nine-month shooting year.

"NYPD Blue was always better the more time we spent in New York, to the extent that if you don't spend time in the city, you lock yourself into more interior storylines," Milch said. "And that did happen with NYPD Blue. As years went on, NYPD Blue became more of an interior show."

The tortuous way of talking that has become a trademark of characters on NYPD Blue was a Milch creation. He promises less of that in Big Apple, if only because so much of it takes place in the white-collar world of FBI offices and Supreme Court corridors.

"Cops live in a special world. You want the world to be accessible, and yet give the viewer a sense of its difference. One way you do that is through a certain stylization of dialogue, not so foreign to the viewer that the viewer can't get it, but which the viewer realizes is different.

"By making that associative leap, the viewer can claim that special world as his or her own. That's a highfalutin' explanation for it."

Milch has no regrets about his decision to leave NYPD Blue -- he knew his time was up. "The one thing I can absolutely guarantee is that [the show] is going to be better this year than it would have been if I were writing it. And the reason for that is that it was time to go.

"The truth is that a parent, no matter how loving, understands that at a certain point if he tries to continue the relationship, he's hurting the kid. He is pre-empting the child's opportunity to grow. And so I left."

And so far, he is content with Big Apple, despite the baggage that comes with great expectations. "The proper act of humility is to be grateful for the opportunity to practise your art. Everything else is gravy.

"In horse racing, they say of a great horse, 'He didn't leave anything in the barn,' " said Milch. "We didn't leave anything in the barn."