Louis-Dreyfus and Hall (with whom she worked on ''Saturday Night Live'' before they married in 1987) felt the upside of the pitch was the concept itself, the likes of which hadn't been seen on network TV since, well, ever. Single-camera comedies like Fox's ''Malcolm in the Middle'' and NBC's ''Scrubs'' sort of come close, but both still feature conventional story lines that deliver a big ol' moral at the end.
Hall -- a fan of the recent big-screen head trip ''Memento'' -- loved the current vogue of messing with time in the movies, so he decided to incorporate that into a script for his wife. ''You learn about the characters through watching them behave, which is more like real life,'' he says. ''But it's more difficult to write and certainly more difficult for an audience. You really have to pay attention; it's not just sit back and let the jokes roll. We're consciously trying not to be jokey.''
No kidding. Let's get back to that apartment scene, where Louis-Dreyfus is still cracking up on cue. Ellie's boyfriend Ben says he injured his foot. Ellie starts to giggle. Sister Susan asks why she's laughing. Ellie giggles more. Then Susan starts to giggle. Ben accuses Susan of not knowing why she's laughing. Ellie and Susan giggle more. Ellie says it was funny how he hurt his foot after kicking a curb while wearing a sandal.
It's a long way from ''I Love Lucy'' or even ''My Mother the Car.'' But Hall has faith that fans will get the joke, so to speak. ''I don't think the first question audiences will ask is, 'What the hell am I watching?''' says Hall. ''They know Julia. They know the kinds of things she's done before. She has a shorthand with the audience that's built up over all those years on 'Seinfeld' and I hope they'll give her the benefit of the doubt.''
''It's a different kind of performing, there's no doubt about it,'' notes Louis-Dreyfus. ''When you do a show before an audience, there's a theatrical element to it, and that's a high. Here, I have to be aware of energizing my performance. We have to be funny, but instead I try to make the crew laugh. If they laugh after they say cut, then you've got something good.''
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