Ink was the 1996-97 sitcom starring Mr. Danson and wife Mary Steenburgen, which drew attention for all the wrong reasons -- principally because CBS made a costly, 22-episode commitment to the stars before there was even a script and then watched as the show limped through expensive creative changes and critical flogging.

``After Ink, I thought, all right, that's it, no more half-hours,'' Mr. Danson says. ``All I can do is Sam Malone, and I don't want to be Sam Malone, (but) that's all people want me to do or be, and I sure as hell am not going back to CBS, so I'm outta here.''

It's Wednesday, a day of lazy rehearsal on the set, the cast and crew still aglow over the previous night's taping, in which Dick Van Dyke did a guest appearance as Becker's estranged father. Mr. Danson, in blazer, jeans and sneakers, is sitting in the office of the title character he plays, a cranky doctor with more pet peeves than Andy Rooney on a therapist's couch. Twice-divorced, middle-aged, Becker has given up a high-paying research job at Harvard to open a general practice for low-income patients in the Bronx. But his heart of gold is constantly canceled out by his rants about everyday life.

There's a discernible bit of Becker in Dave Hackel, the show's 49-year-old creator and executive producer. After decades spent on sitcoms such as Wings, Dear John and Frasier, Mr. Hackel wanted to do a show in which the lead character could be, well, not nice.

Becker is hardly a revolutionary sitcom character, but he's at least a breath of hot air in a field crowded with either smug urban yuppies or endearing blue-collar losers. Indeed, even the slightly seedy diner/newsstand where Becker hangs out feels like a throwback to a previous sitcom era. ``I used to think he was this angry guy,'' Mr. Danson says of a character who, very much like Sam Malone, hides his pain with a false front -- this time as a cynic. ``Now I think what he is is this intensely lonely guy. ... What I love is how lonely he is, how awkward he is, how he doesn't want to be touched.''