Hilary Swank: animal activist

I was impressed that Fox devoted Thanksgiving night to the Cause for Paws special. Is there still a way to participate in adopting rescue dogs? — Stacy Elliott, via email

There always is, but the television effort largely fuelled by longtime animal advocate (and two-time Oscar winner) Hilary Swank has helped to centralize the effort nationally. When we last checked, the website fox.com/causeforpaws remained active, with all sorts of relevant information including an adoption application and guidelines for grants and donations. You also can watch the Cause for Paws special again there, with Swank and Jane Lynch as co-hosts, and numerous other celebrities presenting related segments.

What has happened to Saturday and Sunday shows? On a recent Saturday, three of the four networks had sports, and the other had reruns of programs shown during the week. Sunday’s not much better; if you are not a fan of The Good Wife or Revenge, you’re out of luck. — Veronica Paddock

Well, now, let’s be fair. Though NBC has NFL Sunday Night Football, there is other programming on Sundays ... such as America’s Funniest Home Videos and Resurrection on ABC, 60 Minutes on CBS, and the comedies on Fox. Admittedly, Saturdays aren’t what they used to be back in the days of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Love Boat and The Golden Girls. Networks that don’t program sports on that night have found that the ratings typically are so much lower — partly because many people go out, and partly because cable networks often use that night for movie premieres — it’s more cost-effective to go the repeat route. Don’t expect that to change any time soon.