Moore, Harper Will Join Up Again In Abc Comedy

They’re gonna make it, after all.

Seventies sitcom mates Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper will reunite in a new comedy on ABC, targeted for the fall of 1998.

Here’s what little we know: ABC has ordered up 13 episodes of the comedy, in which Moore and Harper will return to their previous personas as Mary Richards and Rhoda Morgenstern - only now, instead of working girls living in the same apartment building, they’re both widows, each with a twentysomething daughter named after the other one.

No writers attached yet, but there is a location - the inevitable New York City. Will the residents of Minneapolis, where Mary and Rhoda once resided, rise up in protest? Is there work for Gavin MacLeod? We watch and wait.

More life for ‘Sacred,’ ‘Cracker’

They’re counting their blessings at ABC, where Thursday night’s “Nothing Sacred” and “Cracker” got the go-ahead for a full season of episodes despite wretchedly low ratings and, in “Sacred’s” case, an ongoing boycott by some Catholics. ABC initially ordered only six more episodes of each, touching off speculation they’d be yanked before season’s end.

Not so happy are the folks at CBS’ “Meego,” off the air as of Jan. 9. Officially, it’s on hiatus; as always, don’t hold your breath awaiting its return.

The new Bill Cosby-hosted “Kids Say the Darndest Things,” a sampling of which netted the Eye its highest Friday night ratings of the season, will take its place.

New women’s movie channel

Lifetime Television’s parent company will launch a 24-hour advertiser-supported movie network next fall, which, like its sister channel, will be intended for women.

The Lifetime Movie Network initially will be programmed with made-for-television movies, theatrical releases and miniseries that already have aired on the 14-year-old Lifetime Television, said Doug McCormick, president and CEO of parent company Lifetime Entertainment Services.