TV Talk

One: NBC is pulling "Studio 60" from their schedule to make way for a new program they want to give the benefit of the "Heroes" lead-in. This does not bode well. In a funny-to-tears coincidence, "30 Rock," the other NBC series about life backstage at a "Saturday Night Live"-like show with a numbered title, is getting a similar treatment.

But "30 Rock" already has a promised return-by date in April, "Studio 60" has none. There's nothing like having friends in high places. I'm reminded of the two questions the brilliant trailblazer writer Michael O'Donoghue once said he wanted to see his sometime boss asked in a television interview.

Question One: "How much are you getting paid, Lorne?"

Question Two: "Even so, is it worth dragging your dick in the mud every Saturday Night?"

I am increasingly convinced that what "Studio 60" really needs is to be taken off network TV and picked up by Showtime or other cable channel. Not only would this make its ratings less disappointing (seven million viewers a week is "24" by cable standards), it would allow them greater flexibility with both time and langauge.

Watching "Studio 60," for the first time watching a Sorkin series I'm sometimes acutely aware that I'm watching filler. Not having to expand ideas to fill 60 minutes with commercials might help.

It's also started to seem increasingly ridiculous when the characters don't swear. At least on "The West Wing" you could buy that they kept their tongues out of deference to the office and that their jobs imposed at least a bit of decorum.

But you're telling me that network TV producers and sketch comedy players don't salt-and-a-deadly-peppa their speech now and again?

Two: Tomorrow's "Boston Legal" will contain a storyline in which a man sues one of those "de-gayification centers" for not curing him. Should be good fun.

Three: What's wrong with this picture? British comedian, writer, and actor Stephen Fry is going to be guesting in a Fox program I watch about a sexy doctor who solves mysteries this week.

That program is not "House," starring Fry's longtime colleague and good friend Hugh Laurie, but "Bones."

Go figure.