'Lear' Without Leering

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In other PBS news, Ken Burns gets another at-bat on his film "Baseball," which is among the Burns-produced documentaries that have done so much to anger minority groups whose names do not begin with "African American." Latino community watchdogs are especially incensed over Burns's projects "Baseball," "Jazz" and, most particularly, "The War."

The addition, titled "The Tenth Inning," will coincide with a rebroadcast of the original nine-part documentary that debuted in 1994, PBS announced.

And "The Tenth Inning" will "follow baseball's trajectory from 1993 through 2008, beginning where the original series left off." PBS says the new bits will feature revealing interviews with -- what a shock! -- players-turned-managers Felipe Alou and Joe Torre, and players Omar Vizquel and Ichiro Suzuki.

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Five hours into Winter TV Press Tour 2009 and the savaging of NBC has begun.

Richard Belzer, cast member of NBC's "Law & Order: SVU," is onstage for a Q&A session for PBS's Feb. 4 broadcast of "George Carlin: The Mark Twain Prize." He's asked about the future of his series, now that NBC has announced it's turning over its 10 p.m. hour, Monday through Friday, for a new Jay Leno-hosted Not the "Tonight Show."

"It's a terrible, terrible trend for network television," Belzer said of the 10 p.m. strategy. "It's a network that is desperate . . . the last gasp of a dying network that could turn out to be brilliant financially, but in terms of [Hollywood scripted-drama writers, producers and actors], I think it's a tragedy, frankly."

Belzer got knicker-knotted when one TV critic asked him whether NBC wanted "SVU" writers to make the show less "skeevy" so as to make it better suited to air earlier than 10.

"What do you think the S stands for? 'Skeevy Victims Unit'? You are a man of words -- good choice!" Belzer sneered.