Tuning In

Harmon’s fertile return

“Law & Order” alumna Angie Harmon is heading back to NBC.

The brunette actress will headline “Inconceivable,” a new drama following the doctors, lawyers, patients and psychologists working at a fertility clinic, Reuters News Agency reports.

The upcoming show, co-starring Ming-Na and Jonathan Cake, will air at 10 p.m. Fridays in the fall. Miss Harmon will play a maverick fertility doctor with a dicey past.

The show’s other casting news concerns Reynaldo Rosales of “She Hate Me” signing up to play Angel Hernandez, a womanizing medical technician. Kevin Alejandro played the part in the pilot.

Miss Harmon’s other recent projects include roles in “Agent Cody Banks” and “Good Advice.” She can next be seen in two feature films: “Fun With Dick and Jane” and “End Game.”

C’mon, get saddled?

Unbeknownst to most “Partridge Family” fans, David Cassidy has been raising Thoroughbreds as long as he has been belting out tunes.

The musical actor, who rose to fame playing Keith Partridge on the 1970s sitcom “The Partridge Family,” will deliver the keynote address at the induction ceremony for this year’s National Museum of Racing’s Hall of Fame ceremony on Aug. 8, Associated Press reports.

“It’s one of the highlights of my entire adult life and career to be asked to speak at the induction ceremony and articulate my passion for racing,” Mr. Cassidy told AP.

Two-time Kentucky Derby winning trainer Nick Zito will enter the Hall of Fame at the ceremony in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Other inductees include trainer Sidney Watters Jr., jockey Thomas Walsh and five-time champion horse Lonesome Glory.

Mr. Cassidy bought his first Thoroughbred in 1973 and has ownership in 28 horses. His 3-year-old colt Mayan King was preparing to resume training after an injury.

’Neighborhood’ squabble

Apparently, anything doesn’t go in reality television.

ABC’s quick cancellation of the reality show “Welcome to the Neighborhood” less than two weeks before its premiere proves that the genre can only take so much reality, AP reports.

With a threatened lawsuit and accusations the network was tone deaf to bigotry, ABC may have traded a major headache for the temporary embarrassment of throwing out a series that already was D.O.A.

Yet executives surely must be hearing uncomfortable questions about how ABC got so close to the brink.

The six-episode summer series, which was to debut Sunday, was heavily promoted and given the choice “Desperate Housewives” time slot.

“Neighborhood” followed three families in a comfortable cul-de-sac near Austin, Texas, given the chance to choose who moves in when a neighbor moves out of a 3,300-square-foot home on their block. Each family is white, conservative and initially interested in neighbors like them.

The candidates include: a black family; a Hispanic family; an Asian family; two homosexual white men who have adopted a black child; a couple covered in tattoos and piercings; a couple who met at the woman’s initiation as a witch; and a white family in which the mom is a stripper.

The idea was to see preconceptions, even prejudices, break down as the white homeowners got to know the competitors as people instead of stereotypes. Within the first two episodes, however, one man made a crack about the number of children piling out of the Hispanic family’s car. The members of the business-owning Asian family were questioned, and displays of affection between the homosexual men were met with disgust.

Anger about the series even united the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (which found it “really disturbing” to watch privileged couples vote out families they don’t like) and the Family Research Council — which worried that conservative Christians would appear like overly judgmental buffoons.

The protests clearly blindsided ABC.

“I didn’t think that people would be this nervous,” Andrea Wong, head of alternative programming at ABC, said before the network made the decision to ditch the show. “Because I really think it’s such a positive show and such a good thing to put on TV and cause viewers to look at themselves, I’m surprised by the negative reaction to it.”

Compiled by Christian Toto from staff and wire reports.