TUBE NOTES Television news

The fire still burns: After five episodes, FX has renewed its acclaimed new drama, "Rescue Me," for 13 to 15 episodes. "Rescue," starring Denis Leary as a struggling post-9/11 New York firefighter, averages 2 million viewers in the choice 18-to-49-year-old demographic -- more than any other new basic-cable show.
Love to be loved: Tony-winner Anne Heche ("Twentieth Century") will join the WB's "Everwood" as a love bunny for star Treat Williams' Dr. Andrew Brown. Heche, who once thought she was an extraterrestrial named Celestia, plays a woman whose husband is paralyzed and unable to speak. Widower Brown teaches her new communication therapies, and they bond. Heche did a three-episode arc on Fox's "Ally McBeal" in '01 as -- what else? -- a gonzo client and love interest for Peter MacNichol's John Cage.
Terror on TV: Writer-director David Mamet and Shawn Ryan, creator of FX's "The Shield," are developing a CBS drama series about the elite Army anti-terrorism unit Delta Force.
Talk show satire: The best new comedy of the fall is not on any of the broadcast networks. "The Kumars at No. 42," which premieres on the cable channel BBC America at 9 tonight, is laugh-out-loud funny. It's a talk show about talk shows that plays brilliantly with the conventions of the genre, satirizing it and paying loopy homage all at once. The concept: An Indian family in the London suburbs -- Mr. and Mrs. Kumar, grandma Sushila and son Sanjeev -- have bulldozed their back yard and built a chat-show set. They then invite real celebrities to their homemade show, and pepper them with bizarre, hilarious and sometimes brutally blunt questions.
Source: Combined dispatches