TELEVISIONFirst Female Captain: For the first time...

TELEVISION

First Female Captain: For the first time in the 28-year history of “Star Trek,” the Federation starship will be helmed by a female captain, when the franchise’s new syndicated series “Star Trek: Voyager” premieres in January. Oscar-nominated French Canadian film actress Genevieve Bujold (“Anne of the Thousand Days,” “Coma”) will head the Starship USS Voyager, which finds itself lost in a distant part of the galaxy along with a former enemy, the Maquis. The series, set in the same time frame as “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” also stars Robert Duncan McNeill (“All My Children”) and Robert Beltran (“Models Inc.”).

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Rosie Talks: Roseanne speaks out for the first time today about upcoming TV movies about her life that are under way at both Fox and NBC. “I read the NBC one--it makes ‘Mommie Dearest’ look brilliant,” Roseanne says on “Entertainment Tonight.” “It’s the worst, stupidest script--like this twin comes out of me and sits next to me on my bed as my inner self, and I have these conversations with it! It’s so bad.” Roseanne also dishes on actress Denny Dillon, who portrays her in the Fox film, and adds that “I wish they’d wait till I die before they do these kinds of things.”

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KCBS News Director: Roger Perret, a producer at KCAL-TV Channel 9, was named news director at KCBS-TV Channel 2 on Thursday. He replaces Robert Jordan, who resigned last month. Perret had been at KCAL since 1989; he previously was assistant news director at KNBC-TV Channel 4. KCBS has trailed its rivals at KNBC and KABC-TV Channel 7 in the local news ratings for many years, but Perret said, “This station is a sleeping giant about to awaken.”

THE ARTS

Protecting Artists’ Rights: In a potentially precedent-setting first test of a national law protecting artists’ rights, a federal judge has prohibited the removal of a football field-sized sculpture from a New York office building. U.S. District Judge David Edelstein ruled that the installation is protected under the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990. Edelstein is the first judge to issue a permanent injunction under the law, which gives artists the right to prevent the “intentional distortion, mutilation or other modification” of their works that would be “prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation.” The building’s owner had sought to remove the installation by artists John Swing, John Veronis and John Carter (known as the “Three-J’s”), but the judge ruled that the removal would destroy certain elements of the work. However, Edelstein denied the artists’ request to finish the piece, which has been a work in progress since 1991. The ecologically themed installation uses recycled materials and includes giant mosaics on the floor and sculptural elements including a mythological god, a huge silver fish and an astronaut with a trash-can head.

MOVIES

Venice Fest Begins: The Venice Film Festival opened Thursday with a dispute over a celebrity judge threatening to steal the limelight from Oliver Stone, whose “Natural Born Killers” is favored to win the Golden Lion Award. The buildup to the 51st edition of Italy’s premier film festival turned bitter when an organizer accused Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa of being too right wing to sit on the star-studded judges panel, which includes actress Uma Thurman and director David Lynch. However, the festival’s head, filmmaker Gillo Pentecorvo, defended Vargas Llosa as a man of culture ideally suited for the job. Meanwhile, the judges have their jobs cut out for them: Italian Gianni Amelio’s low-budget “L’america” (America), a moving tale of an Italian con man who tries to get rich by opening a shoe factory in post-communist Albania, is seen as Stone’s chief challenger for the Golden Lion.

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Zeffirelli Sues Magazine: Italian film director Franco Zeffirelli has sued the London-based movie magazine Screen International for libel for calling him a fascist member of the Italian Parliament. Zeffirelli is a senator representing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (Go, Italy) Party, which rules in coalition with the neo-fascist National Alliance and the federalist Northern League. Zeffirelli’s attorney called the allegation “totally inaccurate” and “highly damaging to Franco Zeffirelli’s international reputation.” The magazine is aimed at senior personnel within the worldwide entertainment industry.