CBS Entertainment Chief: She Could've Danced All Night

"Again, we trust our producers -- and we've got Program Practices. When we've gone too far, they let us know," Tassler waltzed.

"So you have admonished them?"

Tassler, changing costumes, began to do the funky chicken.

And she got her krump on when one critic asked whether she had ever disagreed with Moonves:

"Hmmmm. No."

Critics seemed offended by CBS's Sunday telefilm strategy, which brought us "Spring Break Shark Attack." And who can forget "Locusts!" (CBS promo: "If you can hear the buzz -- it's too late!") For this coming season, the network has planned a "Locusts!" sequel, "Vampire Bats," in which Lucy Lawless reprises her tour de force performance as a voracious-insect specialist, now a college professor in search of a simpler life and who is caught up in the investigation of the death of a student whose body is completely drained of blood, and realizes that the killers are vampire bats that have mutated because of a tainted water supply.

"We know we're up against a juggernaut" on Sunday nights, Tassler said, referring to ABC ratings magnet "Desperate Housewives." "So we're trying some high-concept, popcorn movies."

During her solo debut, Tassler stumbled just once, when she called the network's upcoming miniseries about Pope John Paul II a "papal page turner."

Critics, who can be so unkind, seized on that mistake in an otherwise flawless dance; you've probably read the trade paper headline:

"CBS Prexy Plugs Papal Page Turner to Hix Crix."

"When I hear you say it's a papal page turner, that worries me -- what kind of sensitivity are you taking with this story, and what do you think people will learn from it?" asked one critic (who afterward noted to The TV Column that this is the same network that gave us the miniseries "The Reagans." Or, to be completely accurate, did not give us "The Reagans.") Tassler, recovering her step, began to do the lambada all by herself, which is hard to do:

The PJPII mini has "really top-drawer" production values, she said, explaining that Karol Wojtyla had been a resistance fighter and actor before becoming pope and "lived in very turbulent times," adding that when she called the project a "page turner" she was referring to the "backdrop of the story," which is very "exciting and dangerous and suspenseful."