WITH REPACKAGED `ALLY,' LESS IS DEFINITELY ... LESS.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

The most impressive thing about reformatting hourlong episodes of ``Ally McBeal'' into bite-size, half-hour chunks called ``Ally'' is that it can be done with any sense of comprehensibility at all. That it can be done, of course, doesn't mean it should.

``Ally Lite'' basically extracts one of the subplots that worked in tandem with other story lines on past episodes of David E. Kelley's perky, Emmy-winning comic concoction and forces it to stand on its own. What the people overseeing this prime-time experiment seem to have overlooked is that the reason such stories were only used as complements to an overall hourlong episode is because they don't necessarily hold up alone.

Of three episodes made available for screening, only one - Ally's wacky confrontation with the Pringles lady and her subsequent hearing on charges of instability - passes muster as a viable tale. The others - Ally saves an obese man's life, then must fend off his romantic overtures; Ally referees a romantic spat between a minister and a choir leader, which causes her to reflect on her own miserable love life - simply feel thin and truncated. What's most noticeable in ``Ally'' is what's missing - the accumulation of Kelley-created quirky moments that lead to an emotional payoff at the end.

Meanwhile, to pad the episodes to the appropriate length, there's all sorts of twee nonsense, from an excess of meaningless establishing shots, to gobs of footage either choppily edited or sped up (people were no doubt getting sick of cutesy overuse of fast-motion back in film's silent era). Music figures in a lot, too; too much for a half-hour show, in fact.

Why would Kelley even bother with this, especially given the fact that he currently has four other shows on the air? Apparently, he's noticed that when it comes to syndication, he's getting a raw deal - even middling sitcoms pull in bigger bucks than his acclaimed hour-long series. When average viewers channel-surf, they're more likely to agree to waste a half-hour of their lives on an old sitcom they liked than fritter away an entire hour on a drama.

Kelley's gambit, however, comes at a time when sitcoms are on the wane - the only decent new one of the fall season, ``Action,'' is getting awful ratings - and Kelley himself has been a pioneer in the hourlong comedy genre. With luck, that may translate into syndication success down the line, as well.

It boils down to this: ``Ally McBeal'' is a phenomenon that spoke to the Zeitgeist; ``Ally's'' just a way to kill some time.

The facts

What: A slenderer ``Ally McBeal,'' if that's possible.

Who: Calista Flockhart, Gil Bellows, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Lisa Nicole Carson, Jane Krakowski, Greg Germann.

Where: Fox (Channel 11).

When: 8 tonight.

Rating: Two and one half stars

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Photo

PHOTO The skirts are short - and the episodes even shorter - on the new ``Ally,'' which chops old hourlong ``Ally McBeal'' shows into 30-minute, single-plot-line chunks.