You have to hand it to the folks at NBC for their perfect sense of timing.
On the same day that Helen Hunt won an Academy Award as best actress for her role in the film "As Good as It Gets," the network announced that she will return to "Mad About You." And, as a result, the show will return in the fall for its seventh - and presumably, final - season.
Neither Hunt nor her co-star, Paul Reiser, came cheap. Although no official salary figures were announced, each will reportedly be earning in the neighborhood of $1 million per episode.
Over a 22-episode season, that's a nice chunk of change.
NBC executives are obviously thrilled with Hunt's decision to return. Without her, there would be no "Mad About You."
(The same could be said of Paul Reiser, but then he doesn't have an Academy Award and a burgeoning film career, so there was less chance he would decide to quit the sitcom.)
NBC didn't want to lose both "Seinfeld" - which signs off the air next month - and "Mad" at the same time. This also puts "Mad About You" in the running to grab a Thursday-night time slot in the fall, possibly even the one being vacated by "Seinfeld.".
(But don't be surprised if "Mad" stays right where it is on Tuesdays. Not only does it win its time slot, but it's a key to NBC's lineup on that night.)
It's also nice to see a TV actress who doesn't automatically turn her back on the small screen when she achieves success on the big screen.
(Maybe Hunt was paying attention to what happened to David Caruso.)
On the other hand, this new NBC contract could well make Hunt the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. And make her a lot more money than she'd pull down in films. Even if she makes, say, $7 million a movie - and even if she made three movies a year - it still wouldn't match Hunt's TV salary.
And these days most A-list actors make only one film a year. Or possibly two.
The most money an actress has ever been paid to star in a film is the $12.5 million Demi Moore made for "Striptease." But even that pales in comparison to what Hunt is going to be making for "Mad About You."
And, as has been so clearly demonstrated, spending a season on "Mad About You" won't prevent Hunt from doing a big-screen film and making a few million more dollars.
Whatever the reason, it will be good to have "Mad About You" back in the fall. The current season has revitalized the show. It definitely hasn't run out of gas yet.
JUST WONDERING: Wasn't it a wee bit surprising that Hunt didn't at least mention Reiser when she accepted her Oscar?
UTES AREN'T NATIONAL FAVORITES: Not surprisingly, the Utah basketball team did boffo ratings locally with its win over Arizona on Saturday - a whopping 20.3 rating and a 52 share on CBS-owned KUTV-Ch. 2.
(Locally, a rating point represents about 6,300 homes, and the share is the percentage of homes actually watching TV at the time.)
But the Ute game wasn't a big draw nationally - at least compared to a couple of the other regional finals or when compared to the corresponding game a year ago. The Utah-Arizona game averaged a 6.5 rating, down 13 percent from last year's Minnesota-UCLA matchup. (A national rating point represents 980,000 homes.)
Elsewhere, Duke-Kentucky averaged a 9.9 rating, up 11 percent over Arizona-Providence last year; North Carolina-Connecticut averaged an 8.2 rating, up 9 percent over Kentucky-Utah last year; and Stanford-Rhode Island averaged a 6.4 rating, up 5 percent over North Carolina-Louisville.
There are, of course, a couple of explanations for this. First, the early games invariably do lower ratings than the later games. And, second, Utah's blowout win over Arizona was certainly lacking in anything resembling suspense, unlike the other three regional finals.
Not that local fans are complaining about that, but blowouts traditionally hurt ratings.
And even at that, the Utah-Arizona game still edged the much-closer Stanford-Rhode Island game on Sunday.