Winged by NBC
* Wonder why NBC's spectacular! two-hour! West Wing! series finale! television event! on Sunday won't include one of those tear-jerking retrospectives showing the cast doing wistful? Variety says the network didn't want to pony up the money the rapscallion cast members wanted. Instead NBC will show randy Rob Lowe's Sam Seaborn (talk about) scoring with a call girl on a rebroadcast of the show's pilot on top of the final episode itself. They're not cheaping out, mind you, but making a statement about the mystical union of the Alpha and the Omega. About the serpentine god of TV drama eating its own tail. Or something.
A silver-screen KITT
* Maybe it's his messy divorce from Pamela Bach. Maybe he's just too jowly in middle age, but David Hasselhoff's name has not come up in connection with the planned big-screen resurrection of NBC's '82 to '86 drama Knight Rider. Show creator Glen Larson will write and exec-produce the flick, in which a heroic police officer valiantly survives a shooting, only to be reassigned as a male companion to the talking car, KITT.
An educated idol
* Proving she's a woman of her word, American Idol winner Carrie Underwood fulfilled her vow to go back to school after her Idol commitment, graduating last weekend magna cum laude from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla. But the 23-year-old "Jesus, Take the Wheel" singer may not have all the wisdom in the world: Her degree? A bachelor of arts in journalism. (Oh, what disappointments await her . . .)
Stupid pet tricks casting call
