Kimberly Guilfoyle and Deborah Norvillee.

“It's the charity with longest, most difficult name to say” host Deborah Norville justified as she failed to get the name right at the first, second and third time of asking. The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children hosted its annual gala in the Grand Ballroom of The Plaza on Tuesday testing all invitees' verbal dexterity and generosity. “But it also does the most difficult work.” Good save Ms. Norville.

Founded in 1875, a time when there laws protecting animals but not children from cruelty, the NYSPCC is the oldest children’s charity in the world. It is perhaps surprising that this was honorees John and Margo Catsimatidis first appearance at the gala as they are prolific benefactors of children’s charities across New York. Sitting with them at a well positioned table from which they rarely left, we asked how they got involved.

“We have always been supporters of children’s charities and when we saw the great work that this charity was doing and we wanted to be a part of it.”

Why children’s charities we asked?

“They are our future and need to be nurtured.” Margo was, near verbatim, repeating the brief speech she made earlier in the evening.

Are you having fun tonight?

“Yes.”

Anything in particular?

“The company.”

Brilliant.

Mr. Catsimatidis continued to confirm himself as a potential GOP candidate for mayor.“I’m setting up a exploratory committee in the coming weeks to decide on that.” We queried if the hurricane had crystallized his intentions but he feels that his motives and the needs remain the same.

“He was young,” we overhear Mrs. Catsimatidis say to her husband as we moved to the over-sized dance floor. "It’s a baby face, but we are accepting donations."

Fox News’ Kimberley Guilfoyle was attending and it was clear that this was a cause close to her heart. “I was prosecutor for the district attorney’s office and my specialty was child abuse cases. Investigating, prosecuting but also helping to rehabilitate.” She was delighted to be able to bring her own son Ronan. “I thought it would be good for him to see how a big group like this can come together to help children. We need to keep this group going. He also loves dancing.” As we moved to leave we glimpsed tux wearing toddler Ronan dancing ferociously. The grin plastered to his face was a poignant image of what the charity and the night set out achieve.

Chairman Gary Parr and Gala Co-Chairmen Lady Linda Wong Davies (Linsley Lindekins)

In traditional Chinese culture, the dragon is an auspicious creature, venerated as a symbol of wealth, imperial power and social prowess. Since 2012 marks the year of the dragon, according to the Chinese zodiac calendar New York society dutifully fêted the felicitous occasion with a grand party.

Lincoln Center (as ever) was aflutter with people as we approached. It was one of those non-winter winter nights the city is accustomed to of late, when gloves are jettisoned and coats left unbuttoned. Throngs of people were sitting around the circular fountain, likely exceeding the maximum weight anticipated by its designers. Loathe to be present for an impromptu mass baptism, The Observer headed inside to collect our tickets.

By the time we fully arrived at the New York Philharmonic’s Chinese New Year concert, guests were already on their second flute of preshow Champagne. Red, a propitious color in the Chinese tradition, was the prevailing hue of the evening. Indeed, the room was a vision of black, white and red, between the tuxedoed gentlemen and their crimson-clad wives.

Jamee Gregory, Noreen Buckfire, Corinne and Maurice Greenberg, Gillian Miniter, Wendy Deng and Gary Parr were greeting their friends. By our estimation, about half the women in attendance wore customary cocktail regalia, while the other half donned dresses inspired by Chinese vestments—admittedly with varying degrees of aesthetic accuracy. From Szechuan cheongsams to abstractly oriental kaftans and saris, the ladies’ livery was a sight to behold.

“I’ll be your little concubine!” Deborah Norville squawked with delight, as she greeted Wilbur Ross, who seemed a bit taken aback, in his own set of Asian duds.

“Oh! You did it! You did it! You did it! Isn’t this fun?” enthused Karen LeFrak as she embraced Mr. Ross, one of the few men audacious enough to wear traditional Chinese robes, those lordly silken habits of the ultimate leisure class. The black-and-red ensemble was purchased on a recent trip to Shanghai, Mr. Ross told The Observer. Looking down, we noticed Mr. Ross’s slippers, each adorned with a single Chinese character. “They say happiness and love,” Mr. Ross offered as his wife, Hilary, approached.

Donning an elegant red dress of decidedly Western extraction, Ms. Geary Ross proudly brandished a bejeweled Panda clutch purse. “The pandas secretly want to be dragons,” Mr. Ross said with a slightly downturned grin. Unable to divorce our Anglo sensibilities, we bemoaned our own Chinese zodiac sign, the snake, wishing that we too had been born a dragon. “Oh, every year is auspicious,” Mr. Ross offered said with Confucian prudence.

Soon, attendants were ringing bells with latent insistence, ushering people inside the concert hall with their sonorous chimes. What followed was an innovative series of scores, played with largely Western instruments but capturing those lithe melodies of Chinese music. A league of Mongolian youth choristers took the stage in traditional dress, performing a series of folk songs with musical accompaniment from the Philharmonic orchestra. The children, some barely old enough to stand still, sung with poignant clarity, earning massive applause from the audience. Finally, piano virtuoso Lang Lang appeared onstage, effortlessly executing a complex Liszt concerto. The program ended as the Mongolian youth chorus reappeared on stage, singing “America the Beautiful” with Lang Lang’s accompaniment.

After the performance, crowds meandered out of the amphitheater. Guests seated at the gala dinner found their tables. We found our seat, and, noticed we were sitting next to China’s deputy representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Wang Min. We asked Ambassador Min his thoughts on the performance, and, after a few gruff answers he inquired whether or not we were a journalist.

We noticed Sandy Weill appear in the dining area, and taking momentary leave of the ambassador, asked him about the performance. “Oh, it’s phenomenal, it’s uplifting, it’s just great,” he gushed. After chronicling the Chinese cities that he has visited over the years, Mr. Weill explained that he has high hopes for the year of the dragon, specifically “the world getting along and cooperating and working together.” We’ll gladly raise a glass to that, Mr. Weill.

Returning to our seat, we noticed that Ambassador Min had switched places with his wife, Madame Ren Hui. Despite the initial sangfroid, we convinced the ambassador that we had little interest in communism or free speech, ultimately achieving détente over a discussion of college admissions. Before the evening was through, The Observer had made an ally in Ambassador Min, who offered us traveling tips should we venture to China ourself.

To be sure, conversation in the room largely focused on Mr. Lang, a certified piano prodigy widely regarded as one of the great musicians of our time. Finding philanthropist Oscar Tang across the room, we asked what he thought of Mr. Lang. Mr. Tang, as it were, knows him intimately. “We have a dinner for the New York Philharmonic every summer, so he’s had dinner at our house and so forth,” he said in a serenely soft tone. “It’s a great pleasure to have him.”

Lady Linda Wong Davies similarly praised Mr. Lang, explaining that he has become an important figure in both the cultural and musical realms. “He’s a great ambassador for classical music, number one, because he’s young he’s fun and he’s cool, and number two for China,” she said from her perch at the table, with becrystaled Jimmy Choos cast aside and evening gown tickling the floor. “He’s beyond being Chinese I think.” The entire evening, she said, was an exercise in globalized understanding. “I think it’s a great display of cultural diplomacy.”

Moments later, we saw the piano man himself, sporting a sparkling gold sport coat. Despite his florid finery, Mr. Lang was humble and insouciant when we asked him if he considered himself a cultural ambassador. “That sounds good! That sounds very good!” he said with a laugh. He was less interested in his own performance, however, than the children’s chorus. “They were so cute!” he cooed. While Mr. Lang may not have been the stiff-necked classical pianist we anticipated, his hands unquestionably belonged to a master of the ivories.

With his baby-soft grip in our own, we realized we were holding, quite literally, a multimillion-dollar appendage. The year of the dragon, we decided, would be a good one. Auspicious, indeed.

eknutsen@observer.com

Ms. Norville, who met Ms. Smith during her first stint at CBS, said there was no record of the Vice Presidential candidate ever giving something to charity. "It's just one of the many things we don't know about her," she said. "Actually, her tax papers revealed her and her husband gave a small amount to charity, and their income-" she looked around the room-"is probably different from anyone else's in this room, so it would be much smaller. But it could be significant for her family."

She added: "People ask about Sarah Palin's clothes. Excuse my French, I don't give a rat's you-know-what about her clothes. I care about America. What are they going to do with my health care?" she said. "My kids make fun of me because I buy 48 rolls of toilet paper. I love the feeling of never being without. And I love to clean my closets."

"Your children must be grown by now!" Ms. Smith interjected. "I remember seeing them way back."

After Ms. Norville walked away, Ms. Smith gestured to the Daily Transom. "Slide over here so I can hear you." Nearby a sax was being played nearby along a grand piano. Former ad man Peter Rogers, who appeared to have been born in a tux, came over and offered to get her a glass of wine. Liz pulled his head to hers and sang, "He Vas my Boyfriend." Then they did an adorable duet.

The Daily Transom wanted to know the gentleman's occupation. "Nothing," he said and laughed.

"Oh, Peter's independently wealthy and he paints wonderful portraits," said Ms. Smith. "He used to be an ad man in the '60s." What did he think of Mad Men? "I don't like it," said Mr. Rogers. "I had enough of it back then, and anyway it was nothing like that. I only did luxury."

"Don't listen to him, what does he know?" said Ms. Smith. "I love the show."

Then the Daily Transom moved on to our mutual stock in trade: gossip. "What gossip?" asked Ms. Smith. "There is none anymore. There hasn't been a good gossip story in years. It's all politics now." She continued: "I don't think that really paid off for me," she said, referring to the New York Post, where her column runs. "They don't appreciate me." What of her colleague, Cindy Adams? "We're too old to have rivals, and she's terribly funny." She repeated "terribly funny." Then she said she was tired of using emails because of all the confusion over pronouns. "Now I just call people and say ‘what do you mean?'"

"It's called perspective ," wrote Ms. Norville, author of Back on Track: How to Straighten Out Your Life When It Throws You a Curve , on her Web site, "and it's applied regularly with a deep, cleansing breath."

But that day Ms. Norville, who was sitting in a tiny NBC News office preparing an emergency all-Martha hour of her new 9 p.m. MSNBC show, Deborah Norville Tonight , wasn't feeling Ms. Stewart's pain.

"It's a little late!" she exclaimed, when asked to give Ms. Stewart some soothing advice. But she gave it a shot:

"Well, what is it they say? 'As long as the feet are willing and the sun keeps shining …. ' But she's going to go to jail, so I can give you some advice about jail."

Ms. Norville once spent a week in prison for an episode of Inside Edition in 2000.

There was a detectable glee in Ms. Norville's voice. She flashed the Deborah Norville smile-eyes crinkled, mouth a winsome V-shape -her mischievous button-nose almost twitching like Samantha's on Bewitched . Ms. Norville said the fallen mogul should have listened to her "mama," and then, off the record, used a succinct word to describe the homemaking mogul, one not fit for a family newspaper. And not this one, either.

It was a little weird coming from Ms. Norville, the Scarlett O'Hara of TV news. At 45, the former Georgia Junior Miss America pageant winner has survived her own tribulations, including her devastating ouster from NBC's Today show in 1991, her career's version of the burning of Atlanta. After bootstrapping from local Chicago TV to Today with Jane Pauley and Bryant Gumbel in 1989, rumors spread that Ms. Norville was playing Eve Harrington to Ms. Pauley-not the warm, unthreatening image you need on morning TV and, by most accounts, a far cry from the truth. Ms. Pauley felt threatened, the viewers complained, and while Ms. Norville was on maternity leave in 1991 with her first child, NBC News fired her.

That prompted: a spiraling depression, the self-help book, some hard years on the motivational-lecture circuit. Ms. Norville cobbled her career back together, hosting The Deborah Norville Radio Show for ABC, anchoring a newsmagazine called America Tonight for CBS News, jumping a long ride on the tabloid TV train as host of afternoon schlockfest Inside Edition in 1995-where she still flogs sharks and celebs weekdays at 3 p.m. Ms. Norville insisted that she was over the Today show debacle. But it still defined her career. And now Ms. Norville was back at 30 Rockefeller Center. And it felt good. Oh so good.

"My very first office at NBC was across the hall," she said, giddily, before her show on Friday night, March 5. "My bathroom key from 1987 still works!"

It's sometimes hard to make out Deborah Norville through the glare of that smile: Is she the hardened tabloid sharpie, an icy news queen with teeth bared? Or the chirpy, soft-focus sweetie from Georgia, a "tomorrow is another day" girl, if only we could apply a little more L.P.F.? Former high-school flag-twirler, debutante, University of Georgia sorority girl ("Delta Delta Delta!"), mother of three, wife, seamstress, philanthropist, Bible-school teacher and motivational speaker, Ms. Norville comes off like iced tea sweetened with what just might be strychnine.

Drink up, honey.

But so far, since its debut on Jan. 21, Deborah Norville Tonight -built to go up against that old suspender-meister, Larry King-hasn't shown much bite yet, averaging only 254,000 viewers a night. From the start, Ms. Norville was a curious choice to host her own nightly show. And MSNBC insiders have been growling. Even Today show weatherman Al Roker had to be skeptical when he interviewed Ms. Norville on the Today show. "I mean, MSNBC has not been known for-it's got a revolving door, basically …. Does that give you pause?" he asked.

But if the show seemed slightly undefined, maybe it was because Ms. Norville hadn't felt entirely comfortable letting it rip on Jesus, Martha and gay marriage. So on Saturday, March 6, the night after the Martha Stewart story broke, Ms. Norville met with new MSNBC president Rick Kaplan for the first time and asked if she could crack the anchor façade and start unleashing more of the real Deborah Norville. What would you say, dear viewer?

The following Monday morning, sitting in the Palm Court at the Plaza Hotel, Ms. Norville glowed, her blond hair coiffed, revealing that face, neck bescarfed, hips hugged in a tight leopard-skin skirt, calves in suede boots with pointy toes.

"You're going to see her go out on a limb more," said Ms. Norville, referring to Deborah Norville. "And I'll tell you why: I've been shot at, I've been firebombed, they've said pretty much everything you could say about somebody-there's probably a few things they haven't said, but even the bad guys wouldn't stoop that low. I've been through it: I've been up, I've been down, I've been out, I'm back in. I know who I am. I'm real confident about that. I'm know what I'm good at.

"It's gritty reality, with hope," she continued. "That would be my message. Look, there's a lot of stuff out there that's not attractive, that's not pleasant, that's infuriating, but it doesn't have to be that way forever. It's like the Chicago weather: Wait five minutes, it could change."

Was Ms. Norville a Southern belle?

"It's not 'Southern belle,' it's Steel Magnolia ," she said, dipping into a twangy Georgia drawl. "Man, I don't know who thought up the title of that thang, but it's absolutely right. You know, we're willow trees, we're not oak trees. And the wind can blow, but we're not going to break. We're not going to break. And that's not just Southern women, that's women in general. That's not a Southern trait, that's women. That's estrogen."

Ms. Norville's new boss, Mr. Kaplan, would not speak to The Observer for this article, but through a spokesman he said: "Deborah is a key player in our prime-time lineup, and I couldn't be happier with the show."

Already, on Wednesday, Feb. 24, Ms. Norville had begun to experiment with the new, outspoken Deborah Norville. Talking about Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ , she confessed at the end of the show, "I accepted Christ when I was 15. In fact, I was a Sunday-school teacher for the fifth- and sixth-graders when the World Trade Centers were attacked. My Christian faith is an important part of my personal life …. I weep at the Good Friday services just hearing the Scripture on His death."

Ms. Norville said that she was proud that some viewers had phoned in pegging her as a "non-believer." But now she was turning a corner: "Now I want to get personal about The Passion , because it seems like just about everybody else has," she said. She confessed her Christianity, then concluded: "That's our program for tonight. Coming up tomorrow, Carson Daly."

Ecce cable .

Unlike Bill O'Reilly, the onetime Inside Edition anchor turned Fox News talker, there was a thread of liberal sympathy in Ms. Norville's point of view. She came off as the clear-eyed P.T.A. mom separating herself from Mr. O'Reilly's patriarchal barking and snarling, concerned with corporate malfeasance and President Bush's attempt to ban gay marriage. "I believe in Georgia it's still legal to get married when you're 14," she said. "They might want to look into that at the same time they're looking into some of this other stuff."

She wasn't espousing a political point of view, she said, just a popular one. "I don't think I'm alone there," she said. "I think I'm part of what Nixon would have called the silent majority."

She called her style "righteous indignation," which wasn't so much a red state or a blue state, but a cable state, ready for surfers searching for sordid tales of celebrity flameouts and shark-attack victims who go surfing one-armed a week later-the kind of stuff that's slowly seeping into network TV. "There's really a new paradigm out there," said Ms. Norville. "I would say that traditional network journalism jumped the shark when O.J. Simpson was accused of murder."

Network bigs, she said, said that "we're going to give them a Twinkie, and then we're going to give them the meat and potatoes and those good, healthy vegetables. But you had to have that Hostess cupcake right up there, front and center. America has a very big sweet tooth now."

Ms. Norville has very big, beautiful white choppers.

"I feel for people," she said. "When they're in some of these so-sad situations, you go, 'How do they get it up in the morning?' For just a half a second, I'm just there with them, and it just sort of takes your breath away. Which is why I couldn't go see The Passion , because I would feel every lash. They don't make boxes of Kleenex big enough for me to sit through something like that. I walked out of Glory . Remember when Denzel was getting whipped? About the third lash, I was out of there."

In a way, she was less Steel Magnolia than just good old-fashioned belle: "I do sew my own curtains," she said. "I did make my headboard. It's me …. I don't think I'm a freak of nature because I have that aspect to my life …. And I know some people out there are going to say, 'Oh, yes, this is the lady who lives on the Upper East Side and has a housekeeper who cooks her kids' meals because she's working at dinnertime-what can I say? … I'm real smart. But I'm real Betty Homemaker–y. What can I say? My talent was sewing. Want more? That's it. Straight A's and she sews. It's pathetic, but it's me."

Ms. Norville has lived on the Upper East Side with a Norwegian money manager named Karl Wellner for 17 years, bringing up three kids with two live-in servants while she chaired the Greater New York City Council of Girl Scouts and worked as the spokeswoman for the March of Dimes. "There's nothing phony about her," said Marilyn Chinitz, a Manhattan attorney and friend. "There's nothing false about her. There are many wonderful aspects to her personality. If you watch her show, you pick up several aspects. And they're all her."

Apropos of nothing, Ms. Norville said that she didn't want to talk too much about how great her marriage was, because, you know, it's dangerous. "You don't want to say 'I've got a great marriage' too loudly, because sure as shootin' somebody's going to say, 'Well, I'll take care of that, sweet thing!'"

Sitting at the Palm Court, she pointed to a chandelier on the ceiling to describe the many aspects of Deborah Norville.

"If you think about the prism on these light fixtures, there are a lot of sides to it and it reflects in different ways," she said, her voice growing slightly both more steely and magnolia. "And it's in many ways that it does have so many facets that makes it so interesting. Because down below, it is just the glass vase, and, you know, it's pretty-but it's not nearly as intriguing to look at as the multifaceted prism. I got a lot of facets."

I'll never be hungry again!

"I honestly believe the last thought of anybody in this room-their face down in the gutter, they're wired up to something in a hospital, or they're sitting there having a heart attack or choking and we couldn't get over there fast enough to do the Heimlich on them-the last thought that's going to flash through their minds is, 'Did I matter?'

"I mattered," Deborah Norville said. "I made a difference. I'm cool."

As former Vice President Al Gore edges toward mini-media-moguldom, press sources quoted his partners this week as saying that Mr. Gore would go younger, not leftier-and now, if his plans work, The Observer has learned, Mr. Gore's news channel could be … VTV.

V for victory, V for Vice President, V for Vermont, which Mr. Gore won by 30,000 votes in 2000.

In April, Mr. Gore's principal business partner, Joel Hyatt, purchased a Web site called V.tv from The .tv Corporation, which supplies .tv domain extensions to customers like TBS, the Lifetime Channel and PAX. The company's Web site lists Mr. Hyatt as V.tv's administrative contact and as a representative of INDTV, L.L.C., located in Stanford, Calif., where Mr. Hyatt teaches business at Stanford University. An industry source confirmed that INDTV is the working incorporated name of Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt's TV project, which has been characterized in press reports as either a news network for the reality-TV generation or a liberal answer to Fox News, or both.

As of this writing, V.tv has not yet been activated.

According to the .tv Web site, the price of a fancy one-character domain name is $10,000. Mr. Hyatt didn't return calls seeking comment, so it's hard to know what the V in VTV stands for. One can only visualize Winston Churchill-or John Lennon-holding up two fingers.

If VTV sounds like that other three-lettered channel so beloved by the Oxy Cream generation, that's no coincidence. Mr. Gore's channel will reportedly be geared toward the young Democrats of tomorrow, who can relate to Mr. Gore's fixation with the Internet and hand-held digital-video cameras (V for va-va-video !). Mr. Gore was a fan of MTV's late-90's video-diary show, Unfiltered , and met with the show's producer earlier this year to talk about similar programming concepts.

With that in mind, The Observer called up a few members of the potential consumers in VTV's future target audience to see if they'd ever flip to a channel that aired "edgy" 24-hour news about, say, Iraq and file-sharing and those bad, bad Fox News commentators.

"Yeah, I'd be interested," said Jimmy Jung, a 23-year-old advertising assistant. "I'd be curious. I don't know if I'd check it out all the time, but probably."

Mr. Jung assumed that, if Mr. Gore was involved, it would be "liberal-slanted media." In fact, Mr. Gore's name had to be considered, even if the respondents were fond of the idea.

"I'd be hesitant, because it's being operated by former Vice President Al Gore," said Sarah Lewitinn, a 23-year-old assistant editor at Spin magazine whose friends call her "Ultragrrrl." "But at the same time, it's cool that he's trying to bring current affairs to the young. I think people get their information from MTV anyway, so here's a network for them, which is kind of smart. I know a lot of people in my age group are really unaware of what's going on in the world. They know more about the new Strokes album than what is going on in Iran and Iraq and Syria."

She said it would have to be something with a sense of humor, like The Daily Show , to work. But Elliot Aronow, 23, a public-relations assistant, said it needed to have some gravity. "It depends how seriously they took themselves and how much they gave young people an opportunity to report what they see," he said. "I think young people need to be informed, but not pandered to with all sorts of jump-cut, MTV-style editing. On the other hand, I do believe that most conventional news is totally disconnected from most young people."

Karen Ruttner, a 22-year-old intern at a music-booking agency, gave The Observer the bottom line: "The truth is, when it comes to important news, I don't really care what people my age think. I'd rather hear the professional opinions of, like, seasoned news vets-people who know history and can really be comforting."

Josh Rosenblatt, 20, a student, said he had actually worked on Mr. Gore's Presidential campaign in the former Vice President's home state of Tennessee in 2000-and even he wasn't too sure about Mr. Gore's new thing.

"I like him as a person and as a candidate, but I don't know how much I trust him with TV," he said. "I just think, for the average 18-to-21-year-old or whatever they're aiming for, you can't fool them into liking politics. At the end of the day, they have to compete with The Daily Show ."

But what do the seasoned professionals think of it?

"I think there's a market for it, but a small market," said Jim Murphy, the executive producer of the CBS Evening News . "How are they going to engage people? Personality? Smarts? You can do it by being hip, but news is not a hip thing. College-age kids and kids in their 20's are interested in what's going on, but it doesn't mean they want to consume news. Can you make them feel young, smart and hip by watching this? Sure. But can you do that with homegrown documentaries? No."

For now, Mr. Gore and his partners are still negotiating the $70 million acquisition of digital-cable network Newsworld International from Vivendi Universal after French-owned Vivendi agreed to merge the rest of its entertainment assets with NBC.

Another unresolved question: Will VTV air reruns of V , the 1980's sci-fi series about rodent-eating aliens who take over the earth? They should! That is, if their deal with Universal isn't Vaporized.

For now, the only place on the tube where you can see the Gore-like Vulcans is on Star Trek: Enterprise . [ WWOR, 9, 8 p.m. ]

Thursday, Oct. 16

Here at NYTV, we're calling it "Norville-gate."

On Thursday, Oct. 9, a weekly newspaper in Dallas reported that Deborah Norville, the blond host of the CBS tabloid Inside Edition , paid a whirlwind visit to an affiliate there on Sept. 30 that ended with a 72-year-old security guard being fired on her behalf. Reportedly, Ms. Norville had been late for a taping when, rushing to the locked front door of the station, she loudly declared her identity and did not receive a fleet-footed response from one Richard Daniels. According to staffers at the station, the Dallas Observer reported, " Deborah Norville began acting more like Diva Norville"-and within an hour, Mr. Daniels was axed.

Reached by NYTV a day later, Ms. Norville expressed shock and horror at the report.

"I am so distressed about this story," she said. "I had no idea that anything had happened. What's astonishing to me is, I complimented a number of people at the station about the efficiency of this gentleman.

"I don't expect everyone to like me out there," she added. "But I do expect people in the journalism business to be fair, and this article is hugely unfair."

Ms. Norville said she never complained to management about Mr. Daniels. She said she was too good-natured for such a thing, and she cited her work with the Girl Scouts Council of Greater New York and the Alzheimer's Association as evidence. She also said she was trying to score Mr. Daniels a new job, working a contact that has some connections affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security.

"It's just not me , and anybody who knows me knows this is not me," she said. "I guarantee you I had nothing to do with it."

Mr. Daniels, sitting at home on Monday, Oct. 13, said Ms. Norville had called him on Friday, and he planned on taking her up on her offer to help him find a new job.

"I don't believe Deborah Norville, who appears on that Edition show, would do something like this on her own," he said, putting the blame for his ouster on a station manager named Bill Maples, who he said held a grudge against him for unknown reasons. "I think they saw she was a big celebrity and chose to believe her instead of me, because they figured she'd be in their corner. But she told me she's not in their corner. Everybody around there liked me."

Eric Celeste, the Dallas Observer reporter, said a number of staffers at the station contacted him about the incident, describing the TV host clamoring at the front door, "I'm Deborah Norville! I'm late!" Once the management learned that Ms. Norville's arrival had been stalled by security, they asked Mr. Daniels to pack his bags. The managers of the CBS-UPN duopoly, Steve Mauldin and Mr. Maples, respectively, both claimed that Mr. Celeste's report was inaccurate.

"Honestly, I will tell you unequivocally," said Mr. Mauldin, "if she said, 'You need to get rid of this guy,' I would tell you. Deborah Norville was not an ass, she was a lady. We had an issue with the security guard."

Mr. Mauldin characterized Mr. Daniels as having a history of belligerence. He said the event was the "straw that broke the camel's back," and then handed the phone over to Mr. Maples, who he said could tell NYTV more stories of Mr. Daniels' ineptitude.

"I also caught him sleeping on the job a couple of times," said Mr. Maples. "I wish someone would get the facts straight."

But Mr. Celeste stood by his story.

"The entire station thought it was ridiculous," he said. "The person I talked to, who was sitting right there with Richard, said, 'That was the rudest woman I've ever seen.' The person who Steve Mauldin told me witnessed it said, 'I did not see it all.' She didn't see it until it was basically over." Call Inside Edition ! [ WPIX, 11, 1 a.m. ]

Friday, Oct. 17

After a two-year hiatus from the TV screen, former Full House heartthrob and cocksman John Stamos returns on Sunday, Nov. 16, with a cameo in the CBS miniseries The Reagans , which stars James Brolin as Ronald Reagan. Mr. Stamos, who is trying to kill off his Teen Beat persona, will play John Sears, the former Reagan campaign manager and onetime Nixon White House aide who some theorists believe is the famous Watergate leaker Deep Throat.

That means … Uncle Jesse is Deep Throat. That means … Mary Kate and Ashley can be Maureen Dean and Martha Mitchell.

NYTV called up Mr. Stamos to see if he had any insight into the man who might have changed history. Mr. Stamos, who said he voted for Mr. Reagan in the 1980's, said he's done a bit of research, but just a bit.

"They gave me excerpts from a few different books, but I can't remember what they were," he said. "It was kind of cramming. I did as much as I could, but I'm in the middle of doing Nine ." (Mr. Stamos recently took over the part of Guido Contini from Antonio Banderas in the Broadway musical.)

So what exactly does John Sears do in The Reagans ?

"He came in and took over the Reagans' whole campaign and he tried to muscle out Nancy and that's when he got himself in trouble," he explained.

He seemed vaguely aware of the Deep Throat connection, but he wasn't even sure if Mr. Sears was still alive or not.

"I heard two or three different reports," said Mr. Stamos. "I don't think he is."

Actually, he is. But, hey, it's just a cameo.

Mr. Stamos recently signed a deal to develop a TV series with production company Brad Grey TV and 20th Century Fox TV for the 2004 season. He hasn't hit on a show idea yet-"I just watch TV and I'm confused on what to do anymore"-but he said he was a fan of Fox's forthcoming sitcom Arrested Development , which stars another 80's heartthrob, Jason Bateman.

"I'd like to dig in with more complex characters than I did on Full House , certainly," he said. "I'm fascinated with the darker side."

Meanwhile, those Full House reruns just won't go away! If you're an early riser, you can catch this episode from Sept. 22, 1987. [Nickelodeon, 6, 5:30 a.m.]

Saturday, Oct. 18

NYTV hears rumblings of a mini-mutiny over at BBC America. Over 12,000 fans of the cockney-Brit soap EastEnders have signed an online petition to save the show from Stateside extinction. The channel axed the program from its schedule on Sept. 27, due to poor ratings.

According to programming vice president David Bernath, the channel could no longer afford the program, which was being purchased from BBC H.Q. in London. "The size of the audience has been abysmal," said Mr. Bernath in an online BBC chat with miffed fans of the show two days after the last episode aired.

In case you're not familiar with the Beeb's anti– Masterpiece Theatre , here's an abridged EastEnders taster, courtesy of NYTV. The scene: The Old Vic Pub. A big, busty blonde in a pink nylon blouse and skin-tight jeans is propped up at the bar, shandy in hand. She leans over to the equally bosomy curly-haired barmaid.

"Oy, ya silly cow, lay awf me fella," says she, "or I'll tell yer Phil 'bout wat you got up ta the ovva night wiv 'is bruvvah."

Expat fans of the show are positively "losing the marbles" without their weekly fix of cockney shenanigans. "I am absolutely livid," said Nicola Perry, owner of the West Village "chips and beans" restaurant Tea and Sympathy. "I only got BBC America to watch EastEnders ."

Ms. Perry, who herself hails from London's East End, has arranged to have tapes sent from a friend in Scotland, which she plans to share with fellow End -heads. "We're organizing a tape chain," she said, adding that, though she enjoys other shows on BBC America, she has officially boycotted the channel. "I love The Office , but I cannot watch that station anymore."

It's not just expats who are upset. New Yorker and confirmed Anglophile Larry Jaffee, editor and publisher of the Walford Gazette -a quarterly EastEnders fanzine he started 12 years ago-is currently in London lobbying BBC Worldwide's president, Mark Young. "The short of it is, he's going to stand by [the] decision," said Mr. Jaffee, who actually got an hour-long meeting with the BBC executive in which to air his grievances. According to Mr. Jaffee, Mr. Young said that BBC Worldwide is figuring out ways to fill the void, either by DVD, VHS or video on demand, although no plans were imminent. "I gave him a commitment that I'd sell 3,000 copies in the first six months of release through the Gazette ," said Mr. Jaffee.

Tonight, if you're still wondering what all the fuss is about, the ever-trusty WLIW continues to air episodes of EastEnders . The problem is, they're from three years ago.

"BBC America's [episodes] were only two weeks behind London," said an enraged Ms. Perry. "They pulled it just before Dirty Den was coming back to the Old Vic." Tragic, bloody tragic. -Shazia Ahmad [WLIW, 21, 10 p.m.]

Sunday, Oct. 19

Tonight, the second episode of the new season of The Office is on. It's really funny! [ BBC America, 106, 9 p.m. ]

Monday, Oct. 20

Anderson Cooper's new-ish show on CNN is called Anderson Cooper 360 . What does that title mean? It sounds like his chair spins round and round and he sees all the news of the world as a big blur and then faces the camera, disoriented and delirious, and tries to deliver information in complete sentences to a few hundred thousand people at once. That could mean that CNN's secret plan to beat Fox is … make its audience dizzy and really nauseated. Then nobody can get up to turn to Bill O'Reilly. At least it's a plan. [CNN, 10, 7 p.m.]