RULES OF TV DRAMA SERIES HAMPER BOCHCO'S 'PHILLY'.

Pity the poor TV scriptwriter who must grab the audience's attention within the first few minutes of a premiere episode. Being genuinely inventive is such hard work, so the cheap and easy way out is to be gratuitously titillating.

So let's start over: Pity the poor TV viewer whose attention must be grabbed by a lazy, cynical writer.

``Philly'' comes straight off the Steven Bochco factory assembly line. This one's a lawyer show.

The first words we hear in a courtroom are ``Show me your (coarser word for breasts),'' and a woman, in fact, does. We're three minutes into the show.

Kim Delaney plays Kathleen Maguire, an attitudinal if somewhat green defense attorney with an impossible workload. She also has boatloads of fierce dedication and a petulant young son at home, the result of a most unhappy and failed marriage to a ruthless Assistant District Attorney (Kyle Secor). She must frequently cross paths professionally with her ex (small world, as per TV dictum).

Enter Will Froman (Tom Everett Scott), who's an odd hybrid: a struggling hotshot. He joins forces with Kathleen. He cuts deals with comely female prosecutors the old-fashioned way - by stripping them down and pleasuring them in unused conference rooms while cases are in recess.

Kathleen most often butts heads with equally quip-happy prosecutor Terry Loomis (Rick Hoffman), who actually is a pretty stand-up guy. Trying to convince Kathleen to accept a plea bargain for her client, Terry pitches the joys of prison: ``Three square meals a day, a great gym, lots of sleep - sounds better than my life.''

Hoffman starred with Scott last year in the miserable ``The $treet,'' and his character was miserably sleazy. Here, he looks to be the actor that pops out of the pack.

Loomis' pro-prison soliloquy isn't that far off the mark. The big house is definitely better than Kathleen's life. Her kid's rebellious and resentful, her ex is still vaguely menacing, her job is frazzling, every judge she appears before is a venal oaf, and even her mother thinks she should've stayed at home and popped out more babies rather than mix it up with the big boys. Of the subplots, the abusive yet powerful ex is the most intriguing.

Worst of all, whenever she runs from one courtroom to another, composer Mike Post cranks up this weird, incongruously peppy Irish-tinged music. No one seems to be in her corner; no wonder she's perpetually cranky.

Tonight, three of Kathleen's cases interconnect in peculiar ways. One client has information that will condemn another client yet exonerate the third (again, small world).

Next week, Will opportunistically takes up the cause of a child pornographer. Not just any child pornographer, mind you, but one with whom Kathleen had a little fender-bender and whose previous attorney that same day just happened to have a heart attack in the courtroom in which she was trying a case.

Again. Small world. Or maybe, just a small town. Apparently there are only about 50 people in Philadelphia. Bochco used to be the guy who broke all the rules (``Cop Rock,'' ``Capital Critters'' and, of course, ``NYPD Blue''). Here, he seems like a guy utterly boxed in by them.

``PHILLY''

What:Steven Bochco drama about a mouthy fledgling defense attorney whose life may be the single-most miserable one on the planet.

The stars: Kim Delaney, Tom Everett Scott, Rick Hoffman, Kyle Secor.

Where: ABC (Channel 7).

When: 10 tonight.

Our rating: Two and one half stars

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

Kim Delaney, center, previously on ``NYPD Blue,'' joins up for another Steven Bochco series, ``Philly,'' co-starring Scotty Leavenworth, left, Kyle Secor, Tom Everett Scott, Rick Hoffman and Diana Maria Riva.