Mitch hasseth, Bravo Maxine Lapiduss, Stan Zimmerman, Todd Milliner, Sean Hayes star in Bravo's new "Situation: Comedy." Click photo for larger image. GO BEHIND THE SCENES: L.A. Confidential: 2005 Summer Press Tour Journal

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- So you think you can produce a better sitcom than what you see on TV?

Bravo's "Situation: Comedy" (8 p.m. next Tuesday) begins with a contest as everyday people pitch sitcom concepts to NBC executives. (Bravo is an NBC cable cousin). One of the contestants is Matt Caruso of Canonsburg. His sitcom, "On Your Mark," is about a young man living with unconventional roommates.

Caruso had a champion in "Situation: Comedy" show runner Maxine Lapiduss, a Squirrel Hill native who's written for "Ellen," "Dharma & Greg" and "Roseanne."

"I loved Matt; he was such a doll," Lapiduss said. "He was a little tongue-tied at the beginning [of his pitch], and he really rose to the occasion. I thought his show had great potential."

She said the other "Situation: Comedy" executive producers, including Sean Hayes, who plays Jack on "Will & Grace," also liked Caruso's script.

"Of the crop, it was definitely in the Top 5," she said, noting that no one knew anything about the writers -- gender, race, hometown, etc. -- until after they picked the final nine from the more than 10,000 entries.

In the end, Lapiduss' affection for a contestant doesn't matter because in next week's premiere NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly will choose the two winning scripts that will be produced as 15-minute presentations.

"It's 'Who's the Boss' meets funny," pitches one writing team, jokingly describing their concept.

"It's 'Sex and the City' meets 'The Golden Girls' but with men ... and strippers," Caruso said in his pitch.

In another proposed series, a single mom searches for the sperm-donor father of her teen daughter, which turns out to be an identical plot to a midseason comedy already ordered by The WB.

After the two chosen pilots air on Bravo at the end of "Situation: Comedy," viewers can vote online to give one a green light. The winner will receive $25,000 and representation for one year with a Hollywood talent agency and the possibility -- no guarantee -- of getting the show picked up for NBC's prime-time schedule.

Given the recent dearth of quality comedies -- this fall, there are relatively few sitcoms in prime time, period -- the goal of the series is to find new writing talent in hopes of giving the genre a shot in the arm. But viewers will see just how difficult that can be with network executives, multiple producers and the winning writers all weighing in.

It's a series that will appeal to people interested in how Hollywood works. A future episode about casting the two pilots is especially revealing, showing how capricious some decisions can be. It also depicts what Lapiduss calls the "managed chaos" of the pilot-making process.

Lapiduss recognizes the irony that with so many sitcom writers currently out of work, it takes a reality series to get her back in the sitcom producing game.

"I have lived through these swings, and it's gonna swing back," she said. "It just takes time, and somebody's gonna hit, and when it does, it will open the pipeline again."

"Situation: Comedy" resembles "Project Greenlight," which aired its third season on Bravo this spring, but few viewers tuned in. Lapiduss, who's hoping to shepherd a second edition of "Situation: Comedy" if this one proves successful, isn't worried.

" 'Greenlight' is its own animal," she said. "This is different because you're going to see the product. You don't have to go to a movie theater and pay 10 bucks; this is coming into your home and you get to vote. I loved 'American Idol' for that reason. I love to be able to see the kids [perform] and participate [in voting]."

Whatever the future of "Situation: Comedy," Lapiduss, a 1983 graduate of Allderdice High School and a 1987 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, said she's continuing to work with her "Situation: Comedy" co-show runner, Stan Zimmerman, pitching pilots to networks for fall 2006. She's also re-staging a variety show she first did in 1997 -- a jaundiced look at the TV business -- hoping to garner cable network interest.

State of HBO

Although HBO led all networks in last week's Emmy nominations, it was down from 124 nods a year ago to 93 this year, indicative of the network's somewhat diminished stature. Without past hits "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City," the network's ratings for original series are down, but HBO chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht tried to drown the notion that such a thing should matter, attempting to steer critics toward the idea of the network's breadth of programming beyond scripted series to include movies, sports and documentaries.

"There are a lot of different water coolers in a lot of different places," he said. "People at the water cooler in Pittsburgh, they might not be talking about the same thing as the people at the water cooler in Beverly Hills. We have a broad constituency, and it is a mistake for us to define our business by an 18-to-49-year-old rating."

He did admit the experiment to put original series on Monday night with "Six Feet Under" was a mistake; in the future HBO will stick with original series on Sunday. But he wouldn't concede that "Six Feet Under" has become monotone, and he said it ends in a way that's "powerful, poignant, poetic, unique."

"Sopranos" creator David Chase has been teasing the idea of an additional season beyond the one that will air next March, but Albrecht said he has no idea whether that will happen.

"David has always been most concerned about leaving the audience feeling great about the show," Albrecht said. "I know he knows he can tell more, but I think if he felt he's got 12 more episodes in him, but only 11 of them were going to be really good and the last one wasn't going to be, he would in his mind make the decision not to do it."

Almost four years after announcing it had acquired the film rights to Pittsburgh native David McCullough's "John Adams," HBO is ready to start production of a miniseries this fall. No casting yet, but "John Adams," executive-produced by Tom Hanks, will film in Europe, Colonial Williamsburg and Richmond, Va., in 2005 and 2006 and will air in 2007.

Channel surfing

AMC will air all the James Bond movies produced between 1962 and 1989 beginning with "Dr. No" on Aug. 8 and concluding with "License to Kill" on Aug. 30. The films will be restored and will air in the letterbox format. ... South Fayette's Jenna Morasca will be among the former reality show contestants starring in the cable movie "Kill Reality," and the making of the movie will be chronicled in a weekly series premiering Monday at 10 p.m. on E!