Judging by the number of calls to your local television editor, a lot of you must be watching "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman."
And the question on your minds seems to be: Why is there a new actress playing young Colleen?Erika Flores, who used to play Colleen Cooper - one of the orphan children adopted by Dr. Quinn - has left the show. She has been replaced by Jessica Bowman.
The official explanation is both simple and vague.
"The producers made a statement that her departure was by mutual agreement and that they honored her request to leave the show," said a CBS spokeswoman.
Various unofficial explanations are floating around, most having to do with the producers somehow being unhappy with Flores. Such rumors are common in situations like this.
But CBS insists that it was Flores who asked out of the role.
CHANGES AT FOX: For the second time this year - already - Fox is about to shake up its lineup.
Beginning Sunday, March 5, "The Great Defender" - an hourlong legal drama series - will air at 6 p.m.
That same day at 7:30 p.m., the animated series "The Critic" - dropped last year by ABC - returns with new episodes.
On Friday, March 10, the promising new hourlong series "VR5" - a sci-fi/drama about virtual reality - debuts at 7 p.m.
And on Monday, March 13, Fox debuts the hourlong medical drama "Medicine Ball" at 8 p.m.
As to the shows displaced, Fox has ordered six more episodes of "House of Buggin'," which will return sometime in April. The awful revival of "Get Smart" will have completed its seven-episode run, and - hopefully - will never be heard of again.
Fox says both "M.A.N.T.I.S." and "Models" might return in the fall, but don't hold your breath.
TRULY TRIVIAL: Fox is boasting about the fact that the producers of "Melrose Place" have been asked to provide episodes of that series to jurors on the O.J. Simpson trial.
(Now that should make us all breathe easier about justice being served, huh?)
- Fox is also boasting about the "wedding of the century" - the evil Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa are tying the knot in a three-part episode of "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" that concludes on Wednesday.
(Make up your own joke here.)
- In next week's episode of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford will reprise their roles from the long-running series "The Jeffersons" - the ever-bickering George and Louise.
Somehow, it just doesn't seem right that two characters who began on the classic "All in the Family" may make their final appearance on the lightweight "Fresh Prince."
- In a KSL newscast a couple of weeks ago, meteorologist Mark Eubank, while explaining what the warm weather might mean to the state's fruit trees, actually did an imitation of a fruit tree.
(I am not making this up.)
And I thought we'd seen it all the time Eubank gave us a weather forecast for the planet Jupiter.