Dirty Laundry

TUBE TALK Thursday's '''' finale, featuring the upset victory of Amanda over Trista, was one of the highest-rated shows on ABC all season, drawing 18.2 million viewers to the struggling network. (Not enough to beat the autopsy-of-the-week on CBS' ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,'' but still.) Having already made plans for another season with another bachelor, ABC has decided that what's good for the goose is good for a gander, with auditions taking place for a '','' Variety reports. Guess we'll all just have to tune in to see whether switching the genders makes the show's sexual politics any less queasy....

From Storyline, the production company that brought you last year's award-grabbing ''Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows,'' comes another nostalgia-oriented made-for-TV biopic: ''.'' Starring as Jerry Lewis will be ''Will & Grace'' cutup Sean Hayes; producers are looking for an unknown to play Dean Martin. The movie will cover their 10-year partnership, in the pre-Rat Pack, pre-Muscular Dystrophy telethon days. The pairing turned both the comic and the crooner from unknowns into huge stars and resulted in 16 movies before their bitter breakup in 1956. Shooting begins this summer, with an airdate on CBS sometime during the 2002-03 season.

Amid all the noisy contract negotiations and job chaos among news stars (Peter Jennings, Bryant Gumbel, Katie Couric, Ted Koppel, and all the musical chairs at CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News), CBS has quietly renegotiated a deal with Dan Rather that would keep him on board for four more years, the New York Daily News reports. Terms of the all-but-signed deal were not disclosed, but Rather currently earns about $7 million a year (about how much Jennings would earn if ABC has its way and gets him to take a 25 percent pay cut) and does triple duty on ''CBS Evening News,'' ''48 Hours,'' and ''60 Minutes II.'' The 70-year-old may not remain anchor at ''Evening News'' for the full four years (he may go and hang out with the other seniors on ''60 Minutes''), but the network apparently has no plans to replace him in the anchor chair anytime soon.

PASSING NOTES Ruth Handler, who cemented her place in pop culture history by inventing the Barbie doll, died at 85 on Saturday in Los Angeles from complications from colon cancer surgery. Handler, who cofounded the Mattel toy company in 1942, introduced the doll in 1959, named for her daughter (Barbie companion Ken was named for her son). Handler's creation has since sold more than 1 billion dolls in 150 countries and inspired countless books, songs, websites, and doctoral dissertations.