'In the Box': It's Hip to Be Wonky

Yet another prime-time TV series will be set in Washington, D.C. -- man, are we sexy!

This one's for ABC, and though it's only a pilot deal so far, the odds are better than even that it will get a pickup -- if only because it's being executive-produced by "Grey's Anatomy" creator/exec producer/person-to-blame-for-theDead-Denny-story-line Shonda Rhimes. And she can sell most anything to ABC these days ("Private Practice" -- I rest my case).

"In the Box" -- dreadful name -- is about an ambitious news-producer chick and her colleagues working at a Washington network news bureau. They pursue stories at all costs, juggling their crises of conscience against their daily deadlines.

Richard E. Robbins wrote the pilot script. Robbins is a news producer and director who made documentaries for PBS, cable and broadcast TV for more than a decade. He began his TV career at ABC News in '93, spending several years as a docu producer for PBS's "Frontline" and then, from 1998 to '02, making docs for Peter Jennings.

Rhimes, meanwhile, has been kicking around a chick-journalist project for years. First, it was going to be a series about sexy war correspondents, but then the war in Iraq squashed that one. Rhimes wound up doing "Grey's Anatomy" instead, and the rest is history.

More recently, Rhimes had a pilot going about a bunch of female journalists, and had cast Jeffrey Dean Morgan -- Dead Denny -- in this project, on the heels of his tour de force performance as the heart patient who flames out when Izzie (Katherine Heigl) was this close to marrying him. No word on whether Morgan would have a role in "Box" or, for that matter, whether Heigl -- who gossips say wants out of "Grey's" -- might participate in the new series. Please, God, no.

"Box" would join the pantheon of series set in the Washington area, including Fox's new "Lie to Me," "24," "Bones" and "American Dad," as well as CBS's "NCIS" and "Criminal Minds," HBO's upcoming "Washingtonienne" and Lifetime's upcoming reality series "Blonde Charity Mafia."

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Tomorrow night, David Letterman will finally air the appearance of comic Bill Hicks that he banned from his show back in 1993.

The airing sort of coincides with the 15th anniversary of Hicks's death from pancreatic cancer; he died Feb. 26, 1994.

Hicks's mother will be Letterman's first guest and the six-minute comedy routine will air in its entirety, a Worldwide Pants rep confirms.

Hicks, who once referred to TV as "Lucifer's dream box," was making a return appearance to Letterman's show back on Oct. 1, 1993. After it was taped, though, it got yanked. Much back-and-forth occurred as to whether CBS Decency Police yanked it, or whether Letterman and his Worldwide Pants had their hands on the hook. Finally, WWP took the blame. Letterman has since publicly expressed regret about the pulling of Hicks's appearance.