TUBE TALK Other bios in development include A&E's ''Traitor: Benedict Arnold,'' which will star Aidan Quinn as the Revolutionary War turncoat and Kelsey Grammer as George Washington. (Well, he does have the forehead for the role.) It's shooting in Ireland in April, in the hope of an airdate in early 2003.
Even FX, the ''Son of the Beach'' network, is getting into the act. Its first biopic subject will be Robert F. Kennedy. The network has signed British actor Linus Roache (''The Wings of the Dove'') to star in ''RFK'' and Robert Lynn Dornhelm (ABC's ''Anne Frank'') to direct....
Even the most blinkered ice skating judge would have awarded NBC the gold this week in the Nielsen ratings competition. The network averaged 28 million viewers for the week (more than the next three networks combined), sweeping the top seven primetime shows with its seven nights of Olympic programming. The week's most watched show, of course, was last Monday's controversial Canadian-Russian figure skating showdown, which drew 31.5 million viewers. CBS, which had the other three shows in the top 10, earned a silver for the week, averaging 9.3 million viewers. Fox took the bronze (7.7 million), followed by ABC in fourth place (7.2 million), UPN (4.5 million), and the WB (3.8 million).
REEL DEALS Fighting against Arnold Schwarzenegger in ''Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines'' will be TX, a cyborg even more lethal than Robert Patrick's morphing T-1000 in ''Terminator 2: Judgment Day.'' Playing TX will be 5'11'' model-turned-actress Kristanna Loken. You may have seen the 22-year-old Norwegian-born newcomer in recurring roles on TV's ''Philly,'' ''Unhappily Ever After,'' and ''Pensacola: Wings of Gold.'' Shooting starts this spring in Los Angeles....
Sean Connery will lead ''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.'' He'll star in the adaptation of the Alan Moore/Kevin O'Neill comic series about a proto-Justice League of famous fictional 19th-century adventurers (including Captain Nemo, Dr. Jekyll, and ''Dracula'''s Mina Harker). Connery will play H. Rider Haggard's treasure hunter Allan Quatermain. Shooting begins this summer in the Czech Republic and Morocco....
Oliver Stone is working on two projects about famous conquerors. He's pulled ahead in the derby to make a biopic of Alexander the Great, with plans to direct Heath Ledger as the Macedonian warrior. The shoot has a start date of Oct. 16 in India and a release date of Christmas 2003. That would put it ahead of the three competing Alexander projects, including the Mel Gibson-produced HBO miniseries (due in 2004), the Martin Scorsese/Leonardo DiCaprio version (still unscheduled), and a version produced by Dino De Laurentiis (''Hannibal''), which still lacks a director.
