Ellen Gray: Jordana Spiro, of 'My Boys,' works on a Plan B: college

MY BOYS. 10 p.m. Sunday, TBS.

JORDANA SPIRO knows how to throw a reporter a lifeline.

A few weeks ago, as we talked by phone about TBS' "My Boys," I was trying to find out what NBC's pickup of "Love Bites," a romantic anthology series that Spiro had been cast in, might mean for the future of her cable sitcom, which returns Sunday.

What Spiro probably knew then, but which I wouldn't know for another 24 hours, is that NBC, worried that TBS wasn't going to decide on the future of "My Boys" for a few months - after ratings were in for its nine-episode fourth season - was dropping Spiro from "Love Bites." (Not long after, the network moved "Bites" to midseason after another of its stars, Becki Newton, of "Ugly Betty," announced that she was pregnant, and writer Cindy Chupack stepped down as showrunner.)

So, as Spiro, who plays sportswriter PJ Franklin, tried frantically to wave me off from the Storyline of No Return, we talked a bit about changes in "My Boys," a show I happen to like a lot but seemed to have run out of questions about.

The season starts off with PJ's brother, Andy (Jim Gaffigan), out of the mix - he's said to be working in China - and with PJ and Bobby (Kyle Howard) finally getting to experience the joys and pitfalls of a somewhat settled relationship, along with their odd-couple friends Stephanie (East Norriton's Kellee Stewart) and Kenny (Michael Bunin).

(Howard also got bumped from an upcoming NBC show, "Perfect Couples," because of the uncertainty over "My Boys.")

Bobby, Spiro suggested, is struggling this season with the issue of having a girlfriend who's more successful than he is.

That, along with a change in his financial circumstances, "makes him contemplate changing his career. . . . I think that's something that a lot of people can understand and empathize with," Spiro said. "Certainly I can. I'm actually going back to school."

Ah, the lifeline.

Turns out, Spiro's been working on a master of fine arts - in directing - at Columbia University.

It's a three-year program, but "you're allowed to take leaves of absence," she said. "I'll finish when I'm 85.

"For me, it was really exciting, because I never got my undergraduate [degree], I never went to college, so for me it was something I was missing," said Spiro, who started classes last fall and said that her courses covered "everything from aesthetics to logistics."

How did she get to skip straight to grad school?