Meanwhile, over at “Cheers”: We tried to...

Meanwhile, over at “Cheers”: We tried to pry some details out of writer-producer-director Jim Burrows about Kirstie Alley’s new role. (She takes the place of departing Shelley Long.) All he’d say is that she’ll wind up the first episode owning the bar as Sam’s (Ted Danson) boss (“an interesting reversal, since Sam was Diane’s boss”). Plus: There will be lots of tension between them, “but no overt relationship. They won’t go together, but who knows what might happen down the line.”

Burrows claims that Long’s departure actually got the producers off the hook: “The next logical step would have been marriage (for Sam and Diane), but that would have made it very domestic and taken it out of the bar. We feel Shelley’s leaving is very beneficial, very invigorating” for the show.

He promises that all the others “Cheers” regulars “will grow next year--they’ll all have new facets in their lives.”