Lunch at Michael's with Fran Drescher

Fran Drescher, star of The WB's Living with Fran (Friday 8:30 ET/PT), says she is willing to work more closely with advertisers to increase the value they receive from advertising in her show. "Television is in a transitional period. Advertisers need to develop commercials that cannot be ignored even when they are fast forwarded, and they need new ways of getting their message across. I remember watching reruns of My Three Sons," she points out, "and Fred McMurray would sit around the table with his TV sons and they would do the Kellogg's commercials. Sometimes you need to break the fourth wall and talk directly to the audience. But networks are so scared of being retro."

I admit I had no idea what to expect when I met Fran for Lunch at Michael's last week. Of course, I knew her personal story of successfully battling uterine cancer; of being the inspiration, creator and star of hit series The Nanny; of marrying her high school sweetheart, co-producing The Nanny with him, and then divorcing him in 1999 after 19 years; and I knew about her four year affair with a man sixteen years her junior. Her affair with a "boy goy" is the subject matter for Living with Fran, heading toward its final six episodes with renewal still uncertain.

After watching this week's episode, and after an engaging lunch at Michael's, (where we chatted with Katie Couric, Fran's former employer Les Moonves of CBS, Gil Schwartz of CBS, Matt Blank of Showtime, and Barry Diller who was lunching with Peter Brown), I've committed to putting the resources of MediaVillage.com behind an effort to convince WB program president David Janollari to renew the series for another season. It's as good, if not better, than any other broadcast network sitcom this season, with the biggest star attraction on any sitcom today.

Fran admits she is struggling to generate more publicity and recognition for Living with Fran. "Being on a network without sports is a problem. It's tough to promote to new audiences. The WB has no sports, no late night talk show, and no national morning show. Their hearts are in the right place and they're very supportive. I'm the link between what the network presently is and what it is becoming. But did I need to be a pioneer at this stage of my career," she asks. "Probably not."

"I don't want to seem negative," she adds. "The show is excellent and getting better. We have an audience that's valuable for advertisers. There is a huge gay audience and we appeal to a broader demographic than the network itself."

I'd watched Fran's live appearance on The Martha Stewart Show immediately before our lunch, an interview Stewart producers say was the best since Martha's return to daytime television. Fran was engaging, funny, honest and, surprisingly, domestic. Her comfort in Martha's kitchen (they baked a dark chocolate crepe cake) made it obvious she knew her way around an oven. Over lunch, Fran told me she hopes to open a restaurant in New York with a casual, tapas theme. "A small place, she says, with a great bar scene, catering to the gay community." ("I'm a diva," she says; "the gay community loves me.")

Fran would also like to have a new guy in her life to personally cook for. "I worshipped my boyfriend," she confided. "It ended three years ago, but it was hard for me to get past it. For a while, I was comparing other men to him." Now Fran realizes how difficult it was for a significantly younger man to deal with her success. "It never mattered to me how successful he was, but I can see from his side he needed to feel good about himself. People would ask him, 'Are you somebody?' The dude needs to feel like the dude."

Now Fran says she's open to men of all ages. "I'm looking for a connection and a spark," she told me as leaves dropped from the plant overhead directly into her salad, evoking her trademark laugh. "I need someone intelligent enough to challenge my intellect." She admits to having been a very bright student. "My school (in Flushing, New York) wanted to skip me but my sister Nadine was in the class ahead and my Mom didn't think it was a good idea to put us together." She went to Queens College, within walking distance to her home, but dropped out when they wouldn't let her take acting classes until junior year.

Fran is passionate about supporting and expanding arts education in public schools in addition to her commitment to her personal charity Cancer Schmancer(also the name of her best-selling 2002 book), and her work with The Creative Coalition, which educates, organizes, and mobilizes the arts and entertainment communities on political issues. Fran plans to spend more time in New York City to be closer to her mom and dad. From the Martha interview, I'd learned that Fran's mom had been released that day from the hospital (heart fibrillation) and, in fact, Fran was 20-minutes late after stopping to see her Mom (dropping off the chocolate crepe cake and sneaking a small piece). Fans will be happy to know her mom is feeling much better.

Fran and her many fans will also be feeling much better when The WB acknowledges that Living with Fran has the potential to emerge as one of television's best and most popular sitcoms. MediaVillage urges The WB to renew the series for another season, support it promotional, provide a solid lead-in and continue to make the investment in high caliber guest stars (Debi Mazar has become a recurring guest) and talent.