Television

IT KILLER ROBOT Vlad the Impaler

AGE 2 WHY IT? Michael Jordan. Pedro Martinez. Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Dominant? Yes. As dominant as Vlad the Impaler? PAH! Comedy Central's BattleBot Heavyweight Champion--the creation of Gage Cauchois, 50--may have been stunned in the February finals, but he's still the reigning definition of raw, metal-crunching power. MENTOR Compactors Inc.'s Vertical Mini-Compactor model MP-4SX. FAVORITE ROBOT MOVIE "The Terminator, naturally." LEAST FAVORITE ROBOT MOVIE Short Circuit. "Number Five wouldn't be alive if I had anything to do with it. He and [Steve] Guttenberg single-handedly set robots back 15 years." GUILTY PLEASURE Calculating [Pi] to 1024 places while Cauchois is asleep. THOUGHTS ON BILL NYE "I'd fight that chump in a telephone booth." NEXT Bulking up its hydraulic arm of death with two-ton anvils for season 3 (July 10).

IT POLITICO Tim Matheson

AGE 53 WHY HIM? As The West Wing's bitter, scheming Vice President Hoynes, Matheson is the hit series' heart of darkness. ROLE MODEL "For Hoynes, it's LBJ. Pat Caddell, one of the show's consultants and a former Jimmy Carter adviser, told me to think about how Johnson had to wait for power under John Kennedy." CAREER LOW "In 1984, I tried to quit a play, True West, after serious artistic differences with my costar, Daniel Stern. They fired him instead of me. I felt bad about that." (Stern couldn't be reached for comment.) BEST ADVICE "Always rehearse with your props. When I was a kid making Yours, Mine and Ours [1968] with Lucille Ball, we were in a scene where the family was supposed to be making breakfast, and we were all screwing up our cues. She just yelled that into the air, and it's proven invaluable advice ever since." WORST ADVICE "John Landis told me not to do Airplane! He said 'Those guys [the Zucker brothers] are jerks!'" NEXT Costarring in CBS' fall supernatural thriller Wolf Lake, with occasional time off for Veep duties.

IT DIRECTOR Thomas Schlamme

AGE 49 WHY HIM? Creator Aaron Sorkin generally gets the praise, but credit TV's premier director with The West Wing's breakneck pacing and cinematic visuals. "The best of my work is when I balance comedy and drama. When you go through life as a Jew named Tommy Schlamme [pronounced shla-mee], you get comedy and tragedy, absolutely." DREAM COLLABORATOR Wife of 18 years, actress-director Christine Lahti. CLOSEST BRUSH WITH CAREER IMMOLATION Almost leaving his early big-screen gig helming So I Married an Axe Murderer over "personality conflicts" with star Mike Myers. CAREER HE'D MOST LIKE TO HAVE Kobe Bryant's. "I'd actually appear on a whole season of Weakest Link if it meant courtside Lakers seats." KNEW HE'D MADE IT WHEN "Somebody didn't laugh at my name." NEXT Term 3 of Wing.

IT CASTING DIRECTOR Lynne Spillman

AGE 33 WHY HER? Tina! Rudy! Richard! Colby! Mad Dog! As Survivor's casting guru, she's helped transform 32 no-names into 32 household names. Brace for her new batch of citizen celebs with Survivor: Africa. WHAT SHE LOOKS FOR IN A SURVIVOR "All I care about is sex, conflict, and humor--that's it. If you look at Jeff Varner, he gives you all three. Colleen gives you all three. Jerri gives you all three." AUDITION TAPE HINTS The good: "I'm a sucker for songs. You're watching tape after tape, then someone writes a fabulous Survivor show tune and you're like, 'Whoa.'" The bad: "Skits! Because then we don't know who they really are." WORK HABITS Survivor's success has made her seriously superstitious. "I sit in the same chair at every casting session. I wear the same suit to CBS when we're presenting the people. My husband and I have to switch cars, because I'm like, 'I've got to be in the blue car!'" NEXT CBS' fall reality series The Amazing Race.