Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Are half-hour comedies making a major comeback? TV pundits have been analyzing the ratings of sitcoms, including CBS's powerhouse Monday night lineup, to answer that question.

We refer you to Scott Baio as a television bellwether. The one-time sitcom favorite ("Happy Days," "Joanie Loves Chachi," "Charles in Charge") went over to the reality TV realm in a big way, you'll recall: "Scott Baio is 45 ... and Single" and "Scott Baio is 46 ... and Pregnant." But now, Baio is going back to his roots. He's getting ready to shoot a pilot for a show called "Daddy's Home," in which the now-51-year-old will star. He's producing as well.

They're casting for his family — including his wife (described as smart, sexy and supremely organized) and three children: a teenage daughter, a 10-year-old son and a daughter who is 5.

Baio is certainly coming into the project with a far different perspective than he had during his other series outings. The past few years have wrought huge changes in his life, as he went from being a notorious womanizer to a family man and as he dealt with his grief over the loss of his father in 2008.

"It was just the roughest year of my life," he told us. "For the first couple of months after your father is gone, when the phone rings, you think it's him. I would go to call him, and then when I was by myself, I would get really sad and cry."

On the other hand, having his daughter Bailey gave him a newfound sense of purpose: "I'd always been looking for something, and nothing really made me happy, and I couldn't really figure out what it was. I thought maybe it wasn't the right house, the right car, and we had the baby and then it was like, 'This is it.'"

Daddy's home, indeed.

NOT SO INNOCENT: Speaking of retreads, in case you hadn't heard, Lifetime is doing a contemporary remake of the 1980 feature, "The Blue Lagoon," which starred Brooke Shields, Christopher Atkins and Atkins' biceps. This time, super-producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan (films including "Chicago" and "Hairspray" and series including NBC's upcoming "Smash") are executive-producing the effort, along with Judith Verno.

The original film and the book on which it was based were inspired by the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, set in Victorian times and involving two cousins who are children when they set out on their fateful voyage and get shipwrecked. Then they hit puberty — and fall in love — while on an uninhabited, paradisaical island.

In the new "Lagoon," our boy and girl are already 17-year-olds. She's an overachieving super-student, and he's described as a slacker stoner. They wind up on an uninhabited island, too, where they learn to cooperate and fall into passionate love. The plan is to begin filming in Puerto Rico in February.

ON THE DARK SIDE: Haylie Duff says she had a blast making RHI Entertainment's forthcoming "Blackout," about what happens when a hacker deliberately causes the largest electrical outage ever in the West. In it, Duff stars along with Eriq La Salle, Anne Heche and James Brolin.

"I had all night shoots," she says. "I was like a zombie when I was finished."

She also goes dark with her upcoming "Spin" horror movie, in which "a group of friends go to a ranch for a weekend, and nothing is as it seems to be." She plays the heiress whose father owns the ranch, where the caretaker has been ordered to kill all the guests.

ST. LOUIS BLUES: First they lose Albert Pujols, and now this: In preproduction for the Syfy channel is a two-hour pilot for a new series called "Defiance" — that's being developed at the same time as a similarly named online video game.

In this saga, Defiance is the new name for the place previously known as St. Louis, changed in the wake of a takeover of earth by alien forces. Evidently, the aliens allow humans to keep St. Louis. We're not sure why the name change except that it makes a good title. Anyway, the action in this futuristic Western-ish piece focuses on the sheriffs who endeavor to keep the peace between humans and others. Shooting in St. Louis? Nope. Toronto.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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