Sen. Strobe Smithers, the character portrayed by George Gaynes on "Hearts Afire," is sort of a bumbling old fool who's out of touch with reality.
And, according to series creator Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, he's based on actual U.S. senators. Only he's been toned down for television."I did a lot of research on Capitol Hill, and everything about him is based on a real story," Bloodworth-Thomason said. "And I got all this criticism saying this man is unbelievable and these things are too fantastic, which is sometimes the case.
"Sometimes imagination is cloer to reality than real life."
Thus far in "Hearts Afire," the fictional Sen. Smithers has been carrying on an affair with his ditzy receptionist; he's tried to fool the press into believing he's active and athletic; and he's had various problems with his unseen, much-younger wife.
And while Bloodworth-Thoma-son won't say exactly who she patterned him after, she does give a few clues.
"Well, you can kind of use your imagination for that," she said. "I had a couple (of models). I had three or four, as a matter of fact, there was one particular, aging Southern senator who was particularly inspirational."
While she wouldn't directly answer if that particular senator was Republican Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, she did break into a smile at the question.
"I can just tell you that I found out that Strom Thurmond has in his office pictures of little babies out front, and they're all named Strom. They're little Stroms from all over his home state," Blood-worth-Thomason said. "So that's one of the stories I love."
And, while Smithers has been sort of a blithering idiot so far, she promises that we'll see more to his character.
"As the show goes on, you will see that he's very, very intelligent when he's on the Senate floor," she said. "He's very articulate. And also, his suits are shiny and he's going downhill because he's very honest. His collars are frayed."
MORE CANCELLATIONS: NBC, which is drawing about as many viewers as the Weather Channel on Friday nights, has dumped a pair of shows and yanking another at least temporarily.
The two reality series "Final Appeal" and "What Happened?" will make their final appearances on Oct. 23. (Good riddance.)
And "The Round Table" won't be seen on Fridays after that date, but expect to see it show up on another night. (It won't help. That show stinks, too.)
NBC has not, however, announced what it will fill those two hours with yet.
FRIENDLY DIVORCE: Michele Lee ("Knots Landing") is both the executive producer and star of the upcoming CBS movie "When No One Would Listen." And who should she choose as her co-star but her ex-husband, James Faren-tino.
Which apparently means that the two are getting along much better than the characters they portray in the movie. Lee plays a wife who is terrorized by her abusive husband, played by Farentino.
It's all a bit weird, isn't it?
STAYING PUT: Connie Chung, who has been rumored to be heading to ABC, isn't. She just signed a multiyear contract to remain at CBS.
She'll continue to anchor the "CBS Evening News" on Sundays, substitute for Dan Rather on occasion and develop a new prime-time news magazine.
However, she's apparently still not pregnant - although, reportedly, she's still trying.
CBS COMPENSATION: CBS has kissed and made up with its affiliates, meeting them halfway (more or less) in a battle over compensation.
Networks, you see, actually pay their affiliates to carry their shows. And financially troubled CBS attempted to do some major slashing to that compensation earlier this year - resulting in threats of mutiny, as well as lots of pre-emptions, from the affiliates.
Instead of cutting compensation by $20 million, CBS will cut it only by $10 million. Top-rated CBS will pay out an estimated $110 million to its affiliates, compared to $117 million by third-place NBC and $100 million by second-place ABC.
QUOTABLE: "Wheel of Fortune" host Pat Sajak on former late-night rival Arsenio Hall (as quoted in Knight-Ridder Newspapers):
"If you have to advertise that you're hip, you're not hip. . . . Bob Barker is hipper than Arsenio Hall."