SMALL SCREEN THE BUZZ ON TELEVISION.

Byline: - Compiled by Valerie Kuklenski

A NEW ENEMY?: With Saddam out of power and a new Iraqi government taking its first tentative steps toward democracy, eyes are on a young Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, left, who has been rallying devout Muslims and calling for an Islamic theocracy. Sadr gives his first American television interview tonight with CBS News correspondent Bob Simon on ``60 Minutes II.'' While he hated Saddam, who had his father killed four years ago, Sadr resents the American presence in his country even more. ``The little serpent has left, and the great serpent has come,'' he says in the interview.

60 MINUTES II, 8 tonight, CBS, Channel 2.

SERENA'S A STAR: Tennis great Serena Williams makes her dramatic acting debut tonight in a guest role on Showtime's ``Street Time.'' She is playing Meeka Hayes, a parolee who has just been released from prison after serving a cocaine trafficking sentence. Meeka is a former track star who took the fall for her no-good ex-boyfriend and now must decide between reverting to the lifestyle that got her convicted and staying out of trouble. It's up to her parole officer, James Liberti (Scott Cohen), who is no angel himself, to keep her on the right side of the law.

STREET TIME, 10 tonight, Showtime.

THE SKINNY ON 'SKIN': ``Joe Millionaire'' triumphed in the ratings in its first season, and critics for the most part have had high praise for the new drama series ``Skin,'' but neither had the oomph to succeed in Monday night's debuts. The second season of ``Joe Millionaire,'' which this time has a bunch of European women allegedly bamboozled into thinking they are being matched up with a Texas millionaire, finished in fifth place in the 8 p.m. time period, 32 percent lower than NBC's ``Fear Factor.'' ``Skin,'' the Romeo-&-Juliet tale with daddy Montague as a prosecutor and papa Capulet a pornographer, sunk even lower at 9 p.m. It lost 13 percent of the already skimpy lead-in audience and shed another 9 percent of its viewers in its second half-hour. MediaWeek columnist Marc Berman noted that the ``Skin'' audience was 12 percent lower than the same-time-slot debut of ``girls club,'' which came and went after only two episodes last fall, faster than David E. Kelley could say ``young lawyers in miniskirts.''

WE'RE TALKIN' J.LO: Who knows when she found time, what with all the wedding planning and wedding canceling and applying for a gun license and posing for paparazzi, but Jennifer Lopez has stuck a deal with Universal Domestic Television to produce a daily one-hour talk show that will hit the air in fall 2004. J.Lo herself won't be on camera (expect maybe as a guest). The show will be hosted by her sister, New York TV and radio personality Lynda Lopez and three other opinionated women yet to be cast. Universal describes the untitled program as ``a one-stop source for the very latest on pop culture, news, lifestyle, celebrities, beauty and fashion (reflecting) the passion and energy women have come to associate with (Jennifer) Lopez.'' So when you want a passionate take on the news, you'll know where to go.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1) Muqtada al-Sadr

Greg Baker/AP

(2) SCOTT COHEN and SERENA WILLIAMS

(3) LYNDA LOPEZ

Jim Spellman/WireImage.com