Steven Bochco: busy pushing his own envelope.

Steven Bochco, while charming, is outspoken with a tinge of arrogance. He's a creative maverick with a keen instinct. He dares to break form and heckle back when criticized.

He's riding high this fall season: three of his series grace the primetime schedule. For ABC, it's back on the streets of New York with the highly acclaimed Emmy Award-winning police drama NYPD Blue. Murder One will also be back on ABC, having received a stay of execution from Ted Harbert, chairman of ABC Entertainment and a champion of the series. This critically acclaimed law drama, which earned only a 14 share, will get a second chance because of heavy lobbying by Bochco and supporters, massive creative changes and the ratings jump that resulted from Harbert's new scheduling strategy for the last three hours.

One creating change is the abandonment of the show's unique one-case storyline. The 18 episodes of the second season will deal with three separate law cases. Another big change for viewers, as well as for the tone of the show, is the departure of Teddy Hoffman (played by Daniel Benzali), the firm's brooding yet revered patriarch. Filing the vacuum will be James Wyler, former district attorney, who will be played by Anthony LaPaglia. According to Bochco, "Wyler will be single and a much less formal guy, with more of a blue-collar sensibility."

Other changes include "getting the first storyline on its feet in the first hour, getting into court in the second hour, nor spending so much time in jury selection and seeing the firm's new chief, Wyler, actually trying cases in court," said Bochco.

These are not minor adjustments. Taking into account other cast and character deletions and additions, there will be an obvious change in the energy and tone of the program. The buzz is that it's a new show with the same title.

Bochco's third show this fall is Public Morals, his foray into the sitcom arena. His co-creator in the CBS series is comedy veteran Jay Tarses. The edgy comedy follows the New York City Public Morals Division and the hard-core work of its vice cops - or, as they're called in the series, the "pussy posse." Some critics who screened the pilot episode of Public Morals at the recent Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour felt that Bochco was pushing the envelope too far in terms of raw language and base humor. Both Bochco and writer/producer Tarses say they are in the process of making script adjustments. However, Bochco is also vigorously defending the series. As he pointed out, Public Morals is not supposed to be a '90s version of Barney Miller. In 1993, amid a great deal of criticism for its language and nudity, NYPD Blue broke new ground for one-hour dramas; now Public Morals is trying to make its own statement in a sitcom arena.

Bochco said he finds the area of law enforcement a fertile ground for morality plays, be they dramatic or comedic. With passion, he crashed through the sanitized and homogenized form of cop shows. NYPD Blue showed viewers the no-holds-barred underbelly of justice. Public Morals is Bochco's effort to put a comedic twist on that depraved segment of life.

Bochco marches to his own drum, and so far he's banged out the sweet melody of success. His works have garnered 10 Emmy Awards, two Writers Guild Awards, two Peabodys, two Humanitas Prizes and countless honors. By his own admission, he is not out to please everybody: "You do that, and you'll end up with an extraordinarily bland landscape of television. I have made my career out of swimming upstream. I do the kinds of things that people get passionate about on both sides of the issue. If I succeed, that'll really be wonderful. If I don't, it won't be the end of the world."