TVSquad

For the longest time, I've kvetched about the fact that the television industry has stopped programming for Saturday night. For years, Saturday was a great night of television. I remember M*A*S*H and The Mary Tyler Moore Show, not to mention guilty pleasures like The Facts of Life and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Even NBC's thrillogy, The Pretender and Profiler were fun. All those shows were Saturday night hits (some bigger than others).

Well, I'm not alone in missing Saturday TV; Oscar-winner Barry Levinson feels the same. Levinson is also a TV producer -- he did Homicide: Life on the Street and The Philanthropist -- and he thinks the networks are making a big mistake by not seizing on Saturday primetime. He knows the business pretty well and he's confused by the networks' strategy.

"I don't think the answer is to retreat," he told the New York Daily News. "When you give up Saturday night, you open the door for people to go somewhere else. Basically, they're shrinking their own audience."

She's been a vamp, a vixen, a medicine woman, royalty and she's even tried Dancing with the Stars. Now she will solve crimes. The Hallmark Channel has greenlit Dear Prudence, a Jane Seymour crime-solving Martha Stewart-type celebrity. They're calling this a backdoor pilot because Hallmark doesn't do series TV; however, if the movie were to be successful, it could become one of a rotation of star-driven mystery movies that Hallmark currently presents.