What happened to "The Practice"?

There is basically nothing I watch Sunday's at 10pm, especially with Cartoon Network offering nothing worthy in the slot. So, I was flipping and caught the start of "The Practice", the first I've seen of the show since it jumped the shark when it made its two leading characters into murders in the span of a year AND let them both get away with it.

When the hell did this show become a sitcom? Honestly, I'm a 20 minutes in and its been all comedy, mostly from people who never had anything to do with this show. Mafia comedy. Sex perversion comedy. Drug Comedy. Violence Comedy. Disability Comedy. William F'in Shatner Comedy. I'm not sure a show has ever devolved like this before, while having the audacity to still call itself by its original name. Supposedly, they are remediying this next year with a "spin off" that presumably just picks up where this leaves off but without the whole "The Practice" bagage. Though, it does sound like they are keeping up the flimsy pretense of a drama when the show is so obviously a sitcom.

Though, I hear someone actually from the original cast is trying to angle her way into an honest to goodness sitcom. Has that ever even happened? I know a couple of sitcoms have spawned drama spin-offs, but never the other way around.