‘Rescue Me’ star to battle herself

By Frazier Moore

AP Television Writer

NEW YORK

This summer, fans of Callie Thorne are in for a treat.

She will soon be returning with Denis Leary in his firehouse drama “Rescue Me” on FX for its seventh and final season. She also stars in her own new USA series, “Necessary Roughness,” premiering tonight at 10.

The only hitch: When “Rescue Me” returns to the air July 13, it will go head-to-head with “Necessary Roughness” in the very same time slot.

That could pose a slight dilemma, even for Thorne, who anticipates “trying to decide what I’m going to watch at 10 o’clock on Wednesday night — and which one I’m going to TiVo. Verrry interesting.” And she triggers her plummy guffaw.

On “Necessary Roughness,” Thorne plays Dr. Dani Santino, a happily wed mother of two teens and a successful psychotherapist on Long Island in New York. Then she discovers that her husband has been cheating. The marriage is kaput.

As a suddenly single mom, Dani has to tackle life as the family’s sole breadwinner. She gets her chance after meeting cute with the trainer for the New York Hawks pro football team. Matt (Marc Blucas) arranges for her to counsel bad-boy wide receiver Terrance “TK” King (Mehcad Brooks), who, on top of his off-the-field shenanigans, has developed a bad habit of dropping the football.

Can she help TK with his mental game? And can she kick her misgivings about Nico, the Hawks mystery man (Scott Cohen) whose murky job seems that of a round-the-clock fixer?

Even though Thorne’s two shows will coexist on the airwaves this summer, she wrapped production on “Rescue Me” a year ago — and not without some sorrow and angst.

“Briefly, I was thinking, ’I’ll never work again! I’ll never laugh again!’”

Thorne needn’t have worried about working again.

At 5 feet 3 inches, she is sexy and vivacious — an actress who can play vulnerable or tough or, when called for, colorfully unhinged.