Kirstie Alley's "Fat Actress" will air on Showtime in March. Click photo for larger image. Related article: TV Winter Press Tour Journal: Second that emotion / Jan. 14, 2005

LOS ANGELES -- It takes a certain kind of actress to have the security to put it all out there, especially when the "it" is her weight.

Kirstie Alley ("Cheers," "Veronica's Closet") has a background in comedy, which probably helps, but the level of self-deprecating humor she displays playing essentially herself in Showtime's "Fat Actress" (10 p.m. March 7) is startling nonetheless.

"When I was doing 'Cheers' I was hauled in several times for being too fat," Alley said at a press conference this week. "If you'll look back on 'Cheers,' I don't think I ever got over 135 pounds and I'm 5-foot-8. ... When we wrote this show, I said ... 'This is the most humiliating moment of my life. They might need to pad me because I'm really not that fat.' But after I saw the first episode, I was like, 'Oh, my God, I have the fattest [rear end] in the world!' I had no idea I was that fat. So this is cathartic for me also."

Alley, now a Jenny Craig spokeswoman and on one of their diets, said she topped the scales at 207 pounds and is now down to 197. Her goal is to reach 140 pounds.

She said only one person warned her about hurting her career by starring in a series that, at least in part, is about her weight, but she ignored that advice.

"When you're honest about something and you find the humor in something -- I mean, I couldn't have been attacked any more than I was being attacked," she said of tabloid reports about her weight gain before "Fat Actress." "I was under siege 24/7. So it has actually been very liberating to just decide, you know, there's got to be humor in this. I'm not the only person in the world who has gotten fat."

Alley said after "Veronica's Closet," she returned to a normal life, spending more time with her children.

"I turned into Donna Reed -- only she didn't get fat," Alley said. "I was cooking all the time. I started having tons of company again, and I started doing all the things that I hadn't been doing when I was doing a series that I didn't have the time to do. It just sort of crept up on me, I think."

Alley said she's not concerned about the show becoming less funny if she's successful in losing weight.

"The show is really more about the state of mind of women and introversions that they experience and how easy it is to sort of prey upon women and their insecurities," she said. "It's actually more than about just being fat. If I'm skinny in it, I'm sure I'll have some big disease on the cover of The Star. And there's a season [of the show]."

Seemingly stranger than Alley's self-effacing bravery is that the show's writer, Brenda Hampton, created The WB's "7th Heaven."

" '7th Heaven is more the fluke than this," Hampton said. "I started in comedy and I wrote half-hour comedy ... My first love is comedy."

In the premiere episode of "Fat Actress," Alley begs a meeting with Jeff Zucker, president NBC Universal Television Group. Zucker plays a mean, venal version of himself who's all smiles to Alley's face and talks badly about her weight as soon as she leaves the room. Alley and Hampton liked Zucker's performance so much, they've invited him back for a second appearance.

"It's very real that of course people would be social, give me a hug, 'Great to see you,' blah, blah, blah," Alley said. "But we know they're going, 'She's [bleeping] fat. What the hell is this? Why in the hell is she so fat?'"

A&E disappoints

First the good news: A&E has renewed the high-quality British spy drama "MI-5" for a fourth season to begin airing late this year.

Now the bad news: A&E, once known as the Arts & Entertainment network, now suffers from a schlocked-filled programming schedule that doesn't look to improve anytime soon. It's telling that the network's slogan, "The art of Entertainment" , capitalizes "Entertainment" and not "art."

Not that there's anything wrong with entertainment, but, really, is it right to be entertained by real people in real pain? A preview of A&E's upcoming series "Intervention" shows a gambler and compulsive shopper wailing and behaving irrationally, all for the entertainment of viewers at home. There's nothing wrong with trying to help people in crisis, but there's no good reason to exploit them when they're troubled.

Even A&E senior vice president of programming Bob DeBitetto acknowledged the controversial nature of the program, saying, "We fully expect this show is going to spark a tremendous amount of discussion before its premiere."

Other classy docudramas coming to A&E: "Inked," set in a Las Vegas tattoo parlor; "Texas Roller Girls," about women who play roller derby in Austin; and "Whipped," in which cameras are installed in a home, unbeknownst to one spouse, and the in-the-know spouse must convince the other to do five things he or she would never do to discover how "whipped" are they?

It's all enough to make you wonder, why in the world would a respected U.S. senator such as John McCain take his autobiography, "Faith of Our Fathers," to A&E to be made into a TV movie? The film, yet to be cast, is expected to air this spring.

"If I might say, History Channel, A&E, Biography, these are channels people like me watch all the time," McCain said. "Yes, they have diversified programming. I'm very proud that A&E would do this because they've done other high-quality work."

Clearly he must be thinking of "Growing Up Gotti."

"I have seen 'Dog: The Bounty Hunter' clips and certainly he's a role model for all of us," McCain said, getting a laugh. "I like his wife, too."

HBO series updates

"Deadwood" returns for a second season March 6 ... "Real Time with Bill Maher" returns for its third season Feb. 18 ... "Six Feet Under" will be back for its fifth and final season in June ... HBO has not yet made a decision on whether it will renew the low-rated but critically acclaimed drama "The Wire" for a fourth season.

Multiple 'Commandments'

The 10 Commandments are about to get a workout in the most ungodly of places: prime-time television.

ABC has commissioned producer Robert Halmi to make a four-hour, special effects-filled miniseries that recounts the tale of Moses and the commandments -- sort of a remake of the 1956 Charlton Heston movie, but with a greater emphasis on biblical and historical research.

Meanwhile, FX is developing a 10-part series executive produced by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney that's contemporary, devoting each episode to a different commandment.

"These episodes will be set in contemporary America encompassing all geographic, ethnic and socioeconomic segments of our society," said FX entertainment president John Landgraf. "In total they will provide an epic portrait of morality and spirituality in our country today."