Question: I read somewhere ...

Question: I read somewhere that Robert Sean Leonard is going to be starring in a new TV series called Rosebud with John Larroquette, Patrick Dempsey, and others. Is this true? If so, what network, and when? — Leanne, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Televisionary: Well, half-true, unfortunately. Leonard, Larroquette (Night Court), Dempsey, Martin Landau (Space: 1999), Balthazar Getty and Gretchen Egolf did indeed star in a pilot for writer-producer Larry Gelbart (M*A*S*H), which had the working title Rosebud, My Ass and eventually became The Corsairs. Covering the same territory he did for HBO in the biting movies Weapons of Mass Distraction and Barbarians at the Gate, Gelbart planned to track the adventures and misadventures of a media mogul (Larroquette) and his brood in the new prime-time soap.

ABC declined to add it to its fall schedule and has no plans to consider it for mid-season, so the project is effectively dead. That's a shame, too, since I would've liked to have seen Gelbart have a go at network fare once again. He did some press pushing the project, but apparently has moved on to a project about Pancho Villa's relationship with Hollywood movies — another HBO production, which will star Antonio Banderas.

Now, I could take this opportunity to go on yet another rant about how the networks are too cowardly and short-sighted to do anything interesting anymore — or have just plain forgotten how — but I get tired of typing it and you get sick of reading it.