LA Daily News | By Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith

Patricia Heaton, who'll go before the cameras in April to shoot the pilot for her and Kelsey Grammer's proposed "Action News" series, reports she wasn't particularly planning to jump back into the sitcom arena just now, but felt she couldn't pass up "the opportunity to work with Kelsey. And the hours on a multiple-camera show like this are so good." "Action News" has Grammer as a newsman relegated to local TV after something goes wrong on his network gig only to find himself sharing anchoring chores with Heaton's character, a one-night stand of long ago, who turns out to be the mother of his child.

The former "Everybody Loves Raymond" actress just finished an off-Broadway run of "The Scene" with Tony Shalhoub ... and the two Emmy winners reunited at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre last week for the opening of the new, terrific Southern California production of "Wicked," the smash musical about Oz's most notorious witch in her youth. She tells us she's a friend of producers Hank Unger and Matt and Mike Rego ... "They also produced 'The Scene,' and I wanted to show support. We're all from Cleveland."