Last season, Fox's 24 garnered high critical praise but low Nielsen ratings. Might its 10 recent Emmy nominations — including nods for outstanding drama and lead actor Kiefer Sutherland — boost its viewership this fall? "I sure hope so," exec producer Robert Cochran — himself a writing nominee — tells TV Guide Online. "That's all you can say."

Well, not quite. "Yeah, we're a little disappointed [by the ratings]," he adds, "but I think we're disappointed at least in part because of the expectations that were raised. If you look at our timeslot [Tuesdays at 9 pm/ET] and who we were up against... If when the season started, people had said, 'You're going to have a show that's going to go up against Frasier, NYPD Blue and two new hits on other channels, but you're going to finish a very solid third and sometimes second in that timeslot' — people would've been thrilled.

"But given the amount of hype that accompanied the pilot," Cochran sighs, "people were disappointed the ratings weren't better. So, we wish the ratings were higher. But if you look at the competition, we felt, in truth, we didn't do too badly."

Speaking of competitors, who will be 24's biggest rival come Emmy night? "They're all big competition," he laughs. "There were shows that weren't nominated that I would've considered big competition. I'm proud to be in that company."

While Cochran's "thrilled" for Sutherland — a smash hit as lawman Jack Bauer — he's sad that fan fave Leslie Hope couldn't go out with an Emmy nod. "We liked her," he says of the thesp, who played long-suffering Mrs. Teri Bauer. "We struggled and agonized over [killing Teri off] and just thought, on the whole, we're better off going in a new direction. Leslie did a great job and she's a great person. I really mean that."

It's been a long time since Gunsmoke's TV debut, but America's love affair with cowboys ain't over. "The Western hasn't gone away," Burt Reynolds told reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena, Calif., where he talked up Larry McMurtry's Johnson County War. Set to debut Aug. 24 on the Hallmark Channel, the teleplay also co-stars Tom Berenger and Luke Perry.

Reynolds — who's starred in Western yarns from Navajo Joe to The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas — says he much prefers playing a cowboy to being a real one. "I think Willie [Nelson] and Waylon [Jennings], God bless 'em, could tell you even better, but it is the hardest, toughest way to make a living," he said. "You don't make any money. Mr. McMurtry has addressed that, if you've read his books. He deals with the sweat and the unromanticized part of being a cowboy.

"I mean, you feel great when you put that wardrobe on," the 66-year-old actor laughed. "You look like John Travolta for a minute. But the reality of it is that most of those real cowboys look like a thousand miles of bad road."

Best known from his multiple roles on Rowan Atkinson's hilarious Blackadder series, Hugh Laurie is used to variety. After all, the British character actor's done everything from Sense and Sensibility to Spice World! Thus, it's no surprise to see him reprise his role as the wholesome head of the Little household in Stuart Little 2.

"I've got a sweet tooth," the 43-year-old Laurie admits. "I love all that stuff. Right from the first moment I read the script, I was tickled. In a world where we're kind of obsessed with dysfunction in every movie and TV show, [the Little family's] functionality becomes quite interesting, I think just out of rarity. They're so sweet, they made me laugh."

Laurie also enjoys chuckling at Little's improbable premise: "Why the hell would these people be adopting a talking mouse? Well, that I can't answer. As we speak there are papers and dissertations on this subject being composed at Harvard and all the great universities around the world.

"Far be it from me to comment," he jokes. "A statement will be released shortly."