Edmonton Journal from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada • 21

TIPS EDMONTON JOURNAL SUNDAY, MARCH 14, 2004 B3 SCREEN SAVERS Crossing Jordan star has got it all Life could not be any better for Jill Hennessy, who is happily juggling a new baby with her resumed TV career a zany and a little over the edge." Although CrossingJordan is far from being a CS like hit, it has a modest following. Was NBC upset that Hennessy wanted to take time off? "Not really," she says. "I discussed it with them and they were wonderful about it. I knowl was putting a wrench in the machinery but they immediately came up with a great plan." And that plan was to shoot the first six episodes of season three right after season two wrapped. Hennessy says most of the episodes were in the can by July.

Of those episodes, Hennessy says, hercharacterwiUbe absentfrom only two. The guitar-playing Hennessy, who studied music, sang in open mike clubs and once supported herself as a street performer. KEVIN D. THOMPSON Cox News Service WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. Out of sight, out of mind.

Jill Hennessy knows. "When I was pregnant and walking the streets of New York, people would stop and say, Catherine Zeta-Jones!" recalls the throaty star of NBC's Crossing Jordan. "They hadn'trealized Zeta-Jones had her baby and people would stop me and say, 'Say hello to (husband) Michael (Douglas) for Thank you very much but I'm not Catherine Zeta-Jones! Long dark hair and pregnant. It gets confusing." The confusion is understandable. After all, Hennessy's show, in which she plays an unconventional Boston medical examiner with a stormy past, had been shelved for 10 months to accommodate Hennessy's pregnancy.

The Edmonton-born actress and her husband, actorrestaurant owner Paolo Mastropietro, had a son, Marco, in September. Now Hennessy is back on her day job. Afteralengthy layoff, CrossingJor-dan returned last Sunday night. Hennessy, still best remembered for her role as the ultra-serious assistant district attorney Claire Kincaid on Law Order, is looking forward to juggling career and motherhood. "I really appreciate that I can have a job and have a child at the same time," she says.

"Everything feels a lot richer now. I can go to work with people I love, be a creative individual and then see this beautiful human being who smiles every time he sees me. It's so wonderful to incorporate both in my life." Like her role Order, Jordan Cavanaugh can also be very intense. But look for her to smile more and lighten up abit. 1 I i I' I it'm ir" inr I SUPPLIED: NBC Crossing Jordan star Jill Hennessy 1 really appreciate that I can have a job and have a child at the same time.

feels a lot richer now. I can go to work with people I love, be a creative and then see this beautiful human being who smiles every time he sees me.5 Jill Hennessy SCUTTLEBUTT Janet Jackson is headed back to network television on April 10 as the host and musical guest of Saturday Night Live, NBC announced. Rob Lowe, whose NBC legal drama Lyon's Den went down the tubes last fall, will try another series. In Dr. Vegas (CBS) he'll play the house doctor at a Las Vegas casino.

Think showgirls, clowns with floppy shoes, stereotype gangsters, more showgirls CBS is trying to woo Gary Sinise to star in the third of its CSI franchises, the upcoming CSI: New York Inside the Actors Studio, on the U.S. cable channel Bravo, will celebrate its lOth-anniversary season with a rare two-hour interview with Barbra Streisand on March 21. Host James Lipton has been after Streisand as a guest since Actors launched in 1994, Bravo says. The interview was taped in September. The notoriously camera-shy Streisand has two Oscars and eight Grammys, among many other awards.

if 1 Actress Glenn Close makes a guest appearance as a judge March 24 on The West Wing. 4 ane sang to ner DaDy Derore ana ar-ter he was born. "I played music all the time during the pregnancy," she recalls. "I really wanted the baby to hear the guitar through my stomach and I was curi-' ous to see how it would affect him after birth. I began thinking of all the music my father (a meat salesman) played for me as a kid Bob Dylan, Peter, Paul and Mary, Bruce Springsteen.

You start to hear the lyrics in a much different way and you think about how your child will respond to it." Hennessy even sang Marco some Tupac Shakur rap tunes. "I must've sounded like the biggest freak on the face of the planet," she says, laughing. "Buthe loves it and it's a lot of fun to sing. Little Marco knows how to party!" CrossingJordan fans are ready to party now that the show is back. "A lot of people did seem a little upset (when it was off the air)," Hennessy says.

"It's nice to see how many people are so involved in the show. That gave me a lot of inspiration and made me feel pretty darn good." Just like her son. peared in the features The WeddingPlanner and The Musketeer. I Luis Mandylor (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and Sal- li Richardson (Family Law) will appear in Graham Yost's real-time SWAT drama Countdown. I Natalie Zea (Passions) will play opposite Tim Daly in the risk management drama Eyes.

Movie to reunite Growing Pains cast In case you were wondering what's become of the Seaver family since the last Growing Pains aired, ABC has an answer for you. The principal cast of the show, including attor-turned-minister Kirk Cameron, are reuniting for a TV movie (Leonardo DiCaprio and Josh Andrew Koenig, who played Boner, are not currently attached, alas). Growing Pains Home Equity recently began production in New Orleans and is scheduled to air on ABC in May. The in the title refers to the fact that this is the second reunion movie based on the sitcom, which ran from 1985-92. The Growing Pains Movie aired in 2000.

Home Equity will find Jason and Maggie Seaver (Alan Thicke and Joanna Kerns) ready for retirement and looking to sell their house. Maggie has her eye on a villa in Tuscany, while Jason is looking forward to an RVer's lifestyle. Their son Ben (Jeremy Miller) is now a real-estate i agent and has the listing for til his childhood home. He I needs the sale to get his boss off his back, but his older siblings, Mike (Cameron) and Carol (Tracey Gold), who's pregnant, team up to block the sale, each having ulterior motives. Youngest Seaver child Chrissie (Ashley Johnson), meanwhile, just wants to get away from her parents and start a Thicke singing career.

Hijinks will, no doubt, ensue at some point in the film. if has been singing lullabies these days. magazine 2020 a short break. The four-week series, which intertwines prosecution and politics in the Los Angeles district attorney's office, will premiere March 19. Steven Weber stars as the title character, politically ambitious DA David Franks.

The network will air Monday editions of 2020 on March 22 and 29. It will return to its reg REUTERS. FIIE Steven Weber ular home April 16. The DA. opens with a hit on a witness in a high-profile case against the Russian mob.

A prosecutor who was on hand to take the witness' statement (Anna Gunn) is also shot. When evidence comes to light that someone inside the DA's office may have leaked the name of the witness, Franks calls in deputy district attorney Mark Ca-macho to investigate. Rawat steps up a rung Actress Navi Rawat has been bumped up to recurring status on Fox's The O.C. and the up-and-coming thespian will stay in the network's family taking a prime role in the "Oahu" pilot. Rawat's moves at Fox head the latest round of pilot casting news.

For the time being, Rawat will play an expanded role in Fox's popular Wednesday night soap, as Theresea, Ryan's (Benjamin McKenzie) ex-girlfriend from Chino. ABC beefs up pilots ABC has expanded the casts of a trio of drama pilots. I Justin Chambers (Cold Case) will join The Secret Service, a procedural drama about a young woman Tarzan's Sarah Wayne Callies) balancing her marriage and the Secret Service. Chambers will play the woman's part ner. The former model has also ap- Alan I "We will see more of that," Hennessy promises.

"It's good to balance heavy drama with some levity. I miss playing the comedic aspects of this character where she's A Practice spinoff? With a mostly offhand remark, ABC chairman Lloyd Braun has set off speculation that the network is considering a spinoff of its long-running series The Practice, which ends its run in May. Braun said the network is in "active discussions" with Practice creator David E. Kelley about another series. The way Braun describes the show makes it sound like a spinoff: "I can tell you we're in active discussions with David Kelley about another show that will share some of the same blood with The Practice," he says.

"We're not prepared to get into too many details yet because (the concept) is still going through that brain of David Kelley's." Kelley and Jason Katims, who have worked together on Fox's Boston Public, are also developing a separate pilot for ABC, a family drama about three sisters who run a wedding-planning business. j1 if Fox goes MISSING Lifetime has picked up its drama series I-800-MISSING for a second season, with Vivica A. Fox joining the cast as a rule-bending FBI agent. Fox will replace Gloria Reuben, who's leaving the show to pursue rrff uuici uppui lum- i-ties. The pickup of I- 800-MISSWG allows Saturday lineup for the U.S.

cable channel Life-time to remain intact The cable net- reuters, hie work ordered a Vivica A. Fox second season of WM Card, which stars Joely Fisher, last week. The show, based on a series of novels by Jenny Carroll, is about a young woman with psychic powers who works with a skeptical FBI agent to solve missing-persons cases. Fox will play a new agent teamed with the psychic In its first season, the series averaged about 2.1 million viewers a week, solid numbers for a cable show. Fox's last regular role in a TV series was on the medical drama City of An-geis in 2000.

She recently appeared in an episode Alias. ff .1 66 Everything individual Heteros needed Holy heteros! Queer as Folk needs more straight people, says Hal Sparks. "It's the one thing missing in the show," says Sparks, who plays gay comic-book store owner Michael Novotny on Showtime's most popular original series. The fourth season launches April 18; 14 episodes are ordered. "If our show is building a bridge, it's important to see gay characters with straight friends," Sparks says.

"If you're too isolationist, it's counterproductive. We should open doors and open dialogue." The lone heterosexual character among the QAF regular cast is Michael's wacky mom, Debbie (Sharon Gless). There are a few recurring straights, including Justin's mother (Sherry Miller). "Our audience is 60 per cent women, and most of them are straight and open-minded and very loving to their gay friends," Sparks says. "It might be good to see them reflected on the show." Sparks, 34, a single heterosexual raised in tiny Peaks Mill, gan doing stand-up when he was 15.

His bi? break was as host of Talk Soup on Enter tainment Television from 1999 to 2000. QAFs dearth of straight characters is an issue among the heterosexual cast members, Sparks says. They've spoken to executive producers Ron Cowen and Daniel Lip-man, but Sparks says the execs "have bigger fish to fry." Cowen labels the addi tion of straight roles "a very interesting suggestion, one well think about" He won't confirm it, but another het-ero character is expected to join the cast this season. As part of a gay-driven drama, Sparks says, he has to fight the misconception that, in real life, he will decide to "go gay." "The big fear among homophobes is that being gay is somehow contagious. Being gay isn't a choice.

It's part of nature. You can't legislate it out of existence, and you certainly can't pray it out of existence." DA gets try-out ABC is trying out its limited-run series 77ie DA. on Friday nights this month, giving long-running news.