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Add HBO's Bill Maher to the list of late-night comedians going back on the air this week. "Real Time with Bill Maher" will return from a planned hiatus and continue its fifth season Friday, HBO confirmed. But since the weekly show is coming back without its writers, Maher is scrapping his monologue and "New Rules" segment at the end of each program. Instead, the comedian will extend his guest roundtable and may field questions from his audience. He does not plan to write his material, a HBO spokesman said.

A former senior employee of the American Humane Assn., the group responsible for the "No Animals Were Harmed" certification on film credits, is suing her former employer, saying she was wrongfully terminated for complaining about the alleged abuse and mistreatment of horses on the set of HBO's ill-fated series "Luck. " In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court this week, Barbara Casey, the former director of production for the AHA's film and television unit, alleged that AHA thwarted her efforts to enforce AHA's animal safety standards and prevent "animal abuse and cruelty" during the filming of "Luck," which shut down in March after three horses were killed.

Click here to download TV listings for the week of Sept. 16 - 22 in PDF format This week's TV Movies SUNDAY The Prohibition-era drama "Boardwalk Empire" returns. Now, a moment of silence for the dearly departed Jimmy Darmody (Michael Pitt), whacked by his crime-boss mentor Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi, below) in last season's finale. (HBO, 9 p.m.) Up in smoke? Out of joint? Our stash of reefer references and pot puns is all dried up, so it's just as well that the cannabis-themed comedy-drama "Weeds" is ending its eight-season run. So long, Nancy Botwin (Mary Louise Parker)

SHAME on HBO. After the wonderful gifts of "The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under," "The Wire" and "Deadwood," terrible decisions have been made that leave us with the meager offerings of this summer ("John Is No Match for Tony," by Scott Collins, June 13). I don't know which to believe: that David Milch wanted to end "Deadwood" to develop "John From Cincinnati," or that HBO considered "Deadwood" too expensive. Doesn't matter. Either way it was a dreadful mistake. "Deadwood" was so superb in so many ways -- acting, casting, writing.

The Times has published a number of pieces lately concerning whether a 1991 personnel dispute between two HBO employees was managed appropriately ("Time Warner chief takes heat," May 19; "Exec faces fallout from HBO payout," May 18). As is often the case when personnel disputes arise between employees at a company and the facts aren't clear, the human resources department implements a process to try to discern the facts and determine the right course of action. That's what happened at HBO in 1991.

Summit Entertainment has set a pay-television plan for its post-"Twilight" era, signing an exclusive agreement for its movies with HBO that runs from 2013 until 2017. The Santa Monica independent studio is switching away from HBO rival Showtime: Its current deal to distribute its movies on Showtime expires at the end of next year. The Showtime agreement, reached in late 2008, includes all of Summit's five "Twilight" movies, the last two of which are scheduled to hit theaters in November 2011 and November 2012.

HBO and Stewart Productions are being sued by a former American Humane Assn. employee for allegedly mistreating horses and then covering up the abuse during filming of the HBO series "Luck". According to the lawsuit, Casey says the AHA observed drugged horses, underweight and/or sick horses and the misidentification of horses by producers so that animal safety representatives couldn't track their medical histories. "Luck" was canceled in March after at least three horses died during filming.

HBO's new drama "The Newsroom"got the kind of ratings cable news networks might envy. But unlike CNN, Aaron Sorkin could rely on a little help from vampires. About 2.1 million viewers tuned in to Sunday's premiere of Sorkin's "Newsroom," which depicts the turmoil at a fictional cable news outlet beset by ratings pressures and staffers' tumultuous personal lives. That puts "Newsroom" roughly in line with the 2010 series premiere of the fantasy"Game of Thrones"(2.2 million), which has gone on to become one of HBO's biggest hits in recent years, according to Nielsen.

HBO has followed Yuriorkis Gamboa's lead and backed out of participating in the April 14 Brandon Rios fight at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Promoter Bob Arum told The Times on Wednesday that his Top Rank company had filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Gamboa for pulling out of the scheduled bout that would pit the unbeaten featherweight champion against unbeaten ex-lightweight champ Rios at 135 pounds. "Gamboa just said he wasn't fighting," Arum said. "The kid is crazy.