Jane Kaczmarek

This week's scheduled production start on the eighth season premiere of CBS' hit "Everybody Loves Raymond" has been delayed until Monday following the illness of co-star Patricia Heaton and a contract dispute involving Brad Garrett. Heaton, who plays the wife of star Ray Romano, called in sick Monday and Tuesday, and producers decided to move production of the series until next Monday. A spokeswoman for Heaton said, "She's really under the weather and has been to a doctor."

“Being newly single in middle age.... It's like opening one of those child's toys where the snake pops out of the can.” So goes “The Snake Can” at the Odyssey Theatre. Kathryn Graf's wry, insightful dramedy about three longtime girlfriends and their internecine midlife crises surmounts some post-larval structural blips with pertinence, humor and heart. Meet fetching, successful Meg (Sharon Sharth, funny and convincing), a twice-divorced New Yorker unable to sustain even casual relationships, and her party posse.

"I'm not somebody who really believes in curses," Julia Louis-Dreyfus told the audience as she accepted the award for outstanding lead actress in a comedy series. "But curse this, baby!" Many observers had wondered whether Louis-Dreyfus would finally break the "Seinfeld curse" as Christine, a divorced mom still entangled with her ex-husband, on CBS' "The New Adventures of Old Christine."

They'll pose in them, hug in them and probably sweat in them too. But the high-glam gowns and designer tuxes worn by more than 30 actors to Sunday's Emmy Awards show will be dry cleaned before the highest bidders claim them in an auction for charity that begins after the telecast. That's when viewers can log onto www.clothesoffourback.org and eBay.

In the first episode of the summer series "Big Wave Dave's" (debuting at 9:30 tonight CBS, Channels 2 and 8), three irascible guys from Chicago decide to pack up and move to Hawaii, where they'll run a beachside surf shop and talk about da boards instead of Da Bears.

Oscar-nominated actor James Cromwell and "ER" star Noah Wyle were the top vote-getters as members of the Screen Actors Guild elected 46 directors to its national board in results tilting heavily toward candidates supporting the moderate regime of President Melissa Gilbert. The election, results of which were unveiled early Tuesday, is part of a reorganization that involves cutting the union's 107-member board by more than one-third.

"The Sopranos" and "The West Wing" tied for top honors as outstanding drama in awards handed out by television critics Saturday evening, while the HBO Mafia series was named program of the year. The Television Critics Assn.

They sweated in them for almost two hours, but the actors wearing the designer gowns and tuxedos on the sweltering red carpet at Sunday's Emmy Awards have had their duds dry-cleaned. And now Jane Kaczmarek's black lace creation by Heidi Kaczenski, Wendie Malick's champagne-colored cocktail dress by Estevan Ramos and Allison Janney's red number by Erik Gaskins are on the block at www.Ubid .com to raise funds for UNICEF, Cure Autism Now, the Union of Concerned Scientists and Heifer International.