"Either it's all OK, or none of it is," Kyle said. "Do the right thing." The executive decides to strike a blow for free speech and agrees to show it. But at the point where Muhammad is to be seen, the screen is filled with the message: "Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad on their network." It is followed shortly by the images of Christ, Bush and the flag. A frequent South Park critic, William Donohue of the anti-defamation group Catholic League, called on Parker and Stone to resign out of principle for being censored. "The ultimate hypocrite is not Comedy Central — that's their decision not to show the image of Muhammad or not — it's Parker and Stone," he said. "Like little whores, they'll sit there and grab the bucks. They'll sit there and they'll whine and they'll take their shot at Jesus. That's their stock in trade." Parker and Stone did not immediately respond to a request through a spokesman for comment. It's the second run-in over religion in a few months for the satirists. Comedy Central pulled a March rerun of a South Park episode that mocked Scientologists. Isaac Hayes, a Scientologist who voiced the Chef character on the show, resigned in protest over the episode. South Park again got the last word last month with an episode where Chef was seemingly killed and mourned as a jolly guy whose brains were scrambled by the "Super Adventure Club," which turns its members into pedophiles. Only last week, South Park won broadcasting's prestigious Peabody. Awards director Horace Newcomb said at the time that by its offensiveness, the show "reminds us of the need for being tolerant."

Photo: Elisabeth Hasselbeck claims she is being harassed by a person making false accusations against her.

View co-host fights back

Stalker making allegations involving Hasselbeck's baby. The View’s Barbara Walters is standing up for co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck in the wake of anonymous allegations involving her infant daughter. On Wednesday’s broadcast of the ABC daytime show (which airs in Canada on CTV), Walters read a statement from Elisabeth and her husband, pro football player Tim Hasselbeck. A somber Elisabeth was seated beside Walters. Walters said the Hasselbecks have been stalked and harassed by someone making false and malicious allegations involving the couple’s one-year-old child, Grace Elisabeth. The matter has been turned over to the district attorney, according to Walters. In addition to contacting the Hasselbecks, sources claim an unknown person has contacted the New York City Administration for Children’s Services and at least one newspaper reporter. “These allegations have been fully reviewed by child protective authorities and medical professionals and found to be absolutely false,” Walters said, reading from Hasselbeck’s statement.

Photos from L to R: #1.Matthew Perry. #2. Courteney Cox Arquette.

 And Phoebe sends Joey on a blind date, who at dinner proves perfect in all ways except -- for Joey, a cardinal sin -- she eats off his plate. "There's a lot of interweaving, a lot of juggling," says Crane. "One character is the go-to person in another character's story. Then, next time, you have to shift it around." Of course, the magic of Friends wasn't simply its sitcom sextet, but also the magic little world they shared, observes Syracuse University television scholar Robert Thompson. Most sitcoms rely on an authority figure: a parent, a boss, a domineering spouse or even a bossy pal. But Friends took place in a realm free of authority figures, says Thompson, likening it to The Brady Bunch, of all things, "if Mike and Carol had walked around the corner for a pack of smokes and never come back." "The theme song says 'Always stuck in second gear,' and they were: In their 20s, between adolescence and adulthood," he says. "And that, of course, is the dream of everyone: To maintain the ethos of life in a college dorm, beyond college." Another distinguishing factor of Friends: lack of conflict between the characters, reported the AP.Where the plots and humour on most sitcoms depend on characters butting heads (or at least zinging each other with put-downs), the Friends friends "really care about each other, and act like it," says David Bushman, a curator at the Museum of Television and Radio. Most of what goes on between these six, says Bushman, is friendship demonstrated in funny or touching ways. In place of conflict is something more subtle, but just as powerful: a subtext of sexual tension pushing and pulling at these three red-blooded guys and three lovely gals who, as the song pledges, will "be there for you." Sometimes it's more than a subtext. Besides the courtship and marriage of Chandler and Monica, and the Ross-and-Rachel romance, Joey had a fling with Phoebe (although he thought she was her twin sister, Ursula) and made a play for Rachel, among other connections.

 Turns out, staying just friends isn't easy. (For the record: Siblings Ross and Monica maintained proper decorum with each other.) No reports ever surfaced of actual romance among the six Friends stars. Nonetheless, their real-life friendship clearly stayed in synch with that of their characters. And lucratively so, especially at contract negotiation time, when their unified front won them most recently a reported deal of $1 million per episode and a piece of the show's syndication profits. "With their collective bargaining," says Thompson with a laugh, "they had the most effective union of the last decade." "Certainly the renegotiation periods were hard," admits Crane, "but besides the fact that their unity was a powerful negotiating tool, it created a very healthy working environment. They knew no one was going to sell them out. So we never had to deal with any sense of mistrust. "Even more important than the fact that they might sometimes hang out together away from the show is that, as actors, they were generous with each other." Detractors of Friends (and they do exist) call the series shallow, contrived and too cute by half. But no one disputes the co-stars' chemistry, or their skill for giving their characters an authenticity that flourished far beyond the bounds of the show's basic formula. Look no further than quick-witted, self-deprecating Chandler. "He could have been just a comic device," says Crane, "but we had Matthew in the role, so we could eventually turn Chandler into a leading man." The casting process was onerous, Crane recalls. No way could one character fade into the woodwork, or vanish from the show altogether, if the star didn't work out. Nor could any one of them overwhelm the others. The pressure to get the right six actors was huge. "We saw everybody! Hundreds of actors!" says Crane, sounding weary at the memory. "Then we cast them individually, so we never saw them all together." But when the Chosen Six rehearsed the pilot for the first time, "you had the feeling that these were people who had been acting together for years. It was like Season Three of the show!"

Thursday night, Season 10 comes to a close as Friends takes its place in TV annals for its popularity and endurance. But in between the tears and hype, Friends invites a game of what-if: What if one of the stars, or one of the characters, had been a dud? What if a feud among the cast had led to someone's defection? What if one of the actors had exited along the way in pursuit of even greater stardom, as several of them were tempted to do? What then? "Would we have introduced a new 'sixth friend'? The answer is no," says Crane emphatically. No need. "The other five would have been so strong. Besides, I don't know if there's any magic in the number six." Maybe not. Except this time, wrote Frazier Moor.

  "Every week, three of the five girls go to one of these events, hoping to find Mr. Right," said executive producer Paula Butorac. "They've met some interesting people along the way. Some who have infuriated them, some who they have really liked." After each event, the women gather to spill their thoughts on topics like one-night stands, dating standards and ex-boyfriends. "We definitely all have different personalities on the show," said DeKezel, 28. "I am outspoken and I am more of the aggressive flirtatious one." It's been 10 years since DeKezel moved to Toronto, and she was confident she'd mastered the city's singles scene - until she appeared on the show. "I thought I had seen it all and done it all as far as dating goes," she said. "But I've learned from the other women and their past experiences. I look at dating and my own personal life a lot differently." O'Reilly, 28, has hardly had time for dating since leaving Placenpia, N.L.

The spunky, blond, Bay Street lawyer has focused her attention on her career. "I am a professional and my hours of work are pretty demanding," said O'Reilly. "It makes it an extra level of difficulty as a single woman, going out and doing extracurricular things and meeting new people." Butorac thought there was a need for a reality series of this kind - one that shows the women coming together as a group, not just chasing after men on their own. "These woman who were all strangers off the top, suddenly come together and they are bonded by the fact that they are single and that they share these stories," she said. "By coming together their stories don't exist in a vacuum." DeKezel and O'Reilly developed a strong friendship during the five months of shooting. "I think we were soul sisters in another lifetime," O'Reilly said. "Partly because we both come from a small town and we come from the same astrological sign if you believe in that kind of stuff." The women are getting increasingly anxious and excited about the show's debut. O'Reilly thinks people who don't know her might be surprised that she is revealing her love life on TV. "It's kind of like it hasn't hit me yet," O'Reilly said. "The entire country can tune in and see what I think about A, B and C." Butorac won't reveal whether any of the women find love. She's already busy thinking about a sequel to the show. -By. M. Katner.

NBC admits paying for pedophile sting

Photo:Stone Phillips hosts Dateline NBC.

Network claims it was performing a public service

NBC acknowledged Monday that it had paid an organization to set up a pedophile sting operation in Ohio for a Dateline NBC story, saying it was performing a public service. Seventeen men were arrested in March as part of the sting. They were accused of looking for sex with minors after communicating with people posing as juveniles on the Internet, and caught when they came to a home in rural western Ohio. NBC arranged the operation, the fourth in its ongoing "To Catch a Predator" series on Dateline NBC, with an organization called Perverted Justice that tries to ensnare pedophiles. NBC wouldn't comment on how much it paid, although the Washington Post reported it was at least $100,000. The arrangement was first reported in the Dayton Daily News." There's no question it's a unique situation and one we talked about a lot internally," said David Corvo, executive producer of Dateline NBC. "But this is an Internet crime, a new form of crime in America, and we're trying to find new ways of covering it." Perverted Justice volunteers were paid for expenses during the first two stings, but NBC felt the company deserved to be paid for helping set up the more involved operation in Ohio, Corvo said. With NBC's cooperation, the volunteers were briefly sworn in as deputies with the Darke County sheriff's office. Corvo described that as a legal quirk in Ohio. The arrangement raises several ethical questions, including whether the magnitude of the problem was worth the attention paid to it by law enforcement in Ohio, said Bob Steele, a senior journalism-ethics faculty member at the Poynter Institute." If the journalist was paying someone for their information, cooperation and participation, the payment may taint the reliability of the story and the truth being sought," Steele said. "Credibility is affected. Some would even put the term `checkbook journalism' on this matter." Corvo said it's not the same as paying a source. Perverted Justice was working as an NBC consultant, in much the same way that NBC paid a company for use of its hidden-camera technology for the story, he said. The stories have been attention-getters for Dateline NBC at a time the newsmagazine has been hurting for attention. "To Catch a Predator" segments have run this TV season in November and February, both ratings "sweeps" months. The February story drew 10.6 million viewers, above the newsmagazine's season average of 8.1 million, according to Nielsen Media Research. While the Ohio case doesn't have a scheduled airdate yet, May is another ratings "sweeps" month. NBC said it received at least 15,000 letters or e-mails in response to its February story. Not one parent complained about the journalistic methods used to film the piece, he said. "We think the system we set up has allowed us to keep our journalistic standards as well as perform a public service," Corvo said. NBC will disclose to viewers the fee paid to Perverted Justice, he said. Asked whether a story about Internet pedophiles could just as easily be told without the sting, Corvo said it was necessary to illustrate the problem for television. He compared it to 60 Minutes showing Mike Wallace chasing a reluctant source with a camera crew, instead of just saying the source had no comment.