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Retaining its position as the top-rated network and riding on the announcement that it tripled its first quarter operating profit, CBS released its fall lineup last week. Chairman Laurence Tisch, at the recent stockholders' meeting, commented on being top dog again: "The one mission we have here at CBS--we must stay No. 1.

After circling the movie business for the last year, Leslie Moonves now has the CBS eye focused squarely on it. The chief executive of the New York-based TV, radio and billboard company has frequently floated the idea to Wall Street. But Moonves finally took his first formal step toward launching a movie division Wednesday when he made his first hire for the newly created CBS Feature Films.

The television world is topsy-turvy this fall -- and not just because "Desperate Housewives" temptress Nicollette Sheridan shed her towel on "Monday Night Football." CBS, for time immemorial the TV resting place for the Depends and dentures crowd, is poised to win the November sweep ratings period among young adults as well as total viewers. When did the network of "JAG" and "60 Minutes" last achieve this feat? The month Ronald Reagan was first elected president: November 1980.

Apparently, it really will be springtime for Hitler on CBS. The network said Monday that it will forge ahead with one controversial project while it apologized for another, announcing that a miniseries about Adolf Hitler will air as planned during the May rating sweeps but saying that it has not committed to a staged reality version of "The Beverly Hillbillies," which has prompted criticism from rural groups.

CBS President and Chief Executive Leslie Moonves met for an hour with critics of a proposed reality genre version of "The Beverly Hillbillies" without resolving whether the show will wither or move forward. Dee Davis, president of the Whitesburg, Ky.-based Center for Rural Strategies, asked for the meeting to try to persuade Moonves to abandon the project.

CBS aired an excerpt Wednesday night of videotapes that convicted rapist Andrew Luster made of his sexual encounters with drugged victims, provoking anger from victims' families and fueling the latest debate over the ethics and legality of increasingly coarse prime-time TV programs. The broadcast came as the networks' sweeps season, which ends Wednesday, is building to a salacious, true-crime flourish.

After suing to prevent ABC from broadcasting "I'm a Celebrity -- Get Me Out of Here!," a CBS official now says that, after seeing the show, he's "not unhappy" that the network didn't prevail in court. Ratings have been low for the program, which strands various celebrities in Australia -- a concept that CBS felt infringed on its "Survivor" copyright.

The tape of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's exclusive interview with CBS News anchor Dan Rather was edited by the Iraqis before it was returned to the network, an unusual move that raised journalistic questions of whether the Iraqis were able to change portions that they may not have liked. But Rather said on Tuesday's "CBS Evening News" that "as far as CBS News can determine, the content of the nearly three-hour interview is intact and was not censored by the Iraqis."

Americans on Wednesday night got their first extended look in years at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who appealed for peace as the United States continued to prepare for a war to oust him. In a rambling interview with Dan Rather of CBS News, Hussein showed little of the menace that marked his appearances before the Persian Gulf War in 1991, when he vowed to wage the "mother of all battles." He wore a dark suit with a striped tie rather than the military uniform and black beret he often dons.

Steve Winfield is a listed member of the Screen Actors Guild and, according to the owner of the "Fabulous Voices" Web site on which he once appeared, a translator with a particular flair for foreign accents. Last week, for 17 million TV viewers, he was also the voice of Saddam Hussein during Dan Rather's exclusive CBS News interview of the Iraqi leader.