BURBANK, Calif. -- The news that Drew Carey is going to do a live episode of his sitcom during the November sweeps is less surprising than the number of times he and the cast are going to do it.
They're going to do it once for the Eastern and Central time zones. They're going to do it once for the Pacific time zone.And -- stunningly -- in between those two performances they're going to do it once for the Mountain time zone.
You know, the time zone that network television forgot. The time zone that gets ignored. The only time zone that didn't get to see that "live" episode of "ER" but had to watch it on tape-delay from the Eastern/Central version.
You know, the time zone with far fewer households than any other. (Which pretty much explains why viewers here tend to get ignored.)
"Yeah, we want to do one for Mountain time," Carey said on the set of his second prime-time series, "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" the improv comedy show he hosts. "We want everybody to see it live."
Neither the network (ABC) nor the studio (Warner Bros.) was necessarily in favor of doing a Mountain time zone edition of the show.
"We had to work it out so they'd let us do it," Carey said. "They did say we ought to do it twice, but we can do it three times and then everybody will get to see it."
It also helps that Carey pulls a lot of weight at ABC these days, which comes with having not one but two successful series. He also recently completed production on "Gepetto," a musical version of the Pinocchio story in which he plays the title role. (It will air as part of "The Wonderful World of Disney" during the February sweeps.)
What exactly the live episode of "The Drew Carey Show" will entail remains to be seen. "They're writing it right now," Carey said. "We've got some ideas. It ought to be great."
And the episode will combine both a written script and improvisational comedy -- the sort of thing that happens every week on the entirely improvisational "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"
"At the end of every scene, they're going to have a light go off to let us know when there's 30 seconds left," Carey said, "and we're going to do improv at the end of every scene. They're going to yell stuff out to us from off-camera. It's being planned."
Which means that all three versions of the episode will be different -- and that those of us in the Mountain time zone will get to see something different from what they'll see in the Eastern, Central and Pacific time zones.
"It's going to be tough," Carey said. "But it's going to be great. It'll be fun."
MORE MONEY: "Felicity" star Keri Russell certainly seems like a sweet girl, but she knows what Hollywood is all about. After threatening to stay off the set of her WB drama, she's apparently gotten a raise.
No details were announced, but her salary has reportedly been upped from an estimated $20,000 to $30,000 an episode.
But a source at the WB says it wasn't upped that much. "Felicity" was renewed for a second season, but it isn't exactly a big hit. And there's also word that the studios that produce the show, Imagine and ABC, threatened legal action.