FAMILY FEUD
Next season's most anticipated ratings showdown — NBC's The Cosby
Show versus Fox's The Simpsons on Thursday nights — is still months
away, but already both series are planning attention-getting
gimmicks. Viewers of The Simpsons will get an earful of celebrity
voices, including gravel-throated Harvey Fierstein (Torch Song
Trilogy), Marcia Wallace (Carol on the old Bob Newhart Show), and
Tony Bennett, who already has lent his vocal cords to a song for the
show. Meanwhile, look for changes on- and off-screen in Cosbyland: As
the show's seventh season begins, a new writing staff of three men
and four women will try to give stories a more female perspective,
and Cliff Huxtable's 17-year- old goddaughter will arrive to sow
strife in the Huxtable household.
DOUBLE KNOTS
Twin sisters Kara and Kimberly Albright, who play Megan McKenzie
on CBS' Knots Landing, aren't your typical TV actresses: Their hobby
of choice is playing with snails, they work only six hours a day, and
they can portray both male and female characters with little
difficulty. Pretty impressive considering that they are 4 years old.
''They're more like midgets than children, and that's the way we treat
them — with the respect that adults deserve,'' says Terry Albright of
his daughters, who share their roles because of laws limiting the
time children may spend on camera. ''They practice their lines, and
they keep me well-informed on who's working more.'' The twins, who
made their prime-time debut playing a little boy on ABC's Full House,
can't stay awake late enough to watch Knots, but they're already old
pros at interviews. ''I'm a serious actress working at my craft,''
Kimberly says. ''I don't know who taught her that,'' adds her amused
father. ''Maybe Nicollette Sheridan.''
FAKED ALASKA
Roslyn, Wash., (pop. 938) is about to hit the big time: The
secluded hamlet has been chosen to double for the fictional village
of Cicely, Alaska, in CBS' new comedy-drama Northern Exposure, about
the culture shock experienced by a New York physician (Rob Morrow)
who moves to the boondocks. Cocreator John Falsey says weather made
shooting in Alaska impossible, and Roslyn was chosen for ''those huge
fir trees and snow-topped mountains in the background.'' Is this Twin
Peaks territory? Geographically, yes; spiritually, not quite. Falsey
points to the film Local Hero, about a Texas oilman who falls in love
with a Brigadoon-like Scottish village, as an inspiration for
Exposure, which begins an eight-week tryout July 12.
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