You only have a couple of weeks to see former Northern Kentucky resident John C. Hensley's ABC sitcom. On TV, he's one of the Madigan Men. Around here, he's known to some as the son of Peg Asher, a Thomas More College employee.

        Mr. Hensley, 23, lived in Northern Kentucky with his mother for five years. He attended fourth through ninth grades in the late 1980s and early 1990s at Caywood Elementary, Turkey Foot Junior High School and Dixie Heights High School.

        Then he moved back to Louisville to live with his father.

        Madigan Men (9:30 p.m. Fridays, Channels 9, 2) is his third TV job. He made his professional acting debut on Comedy Central's Strangers with Candy, and played Eric Scatino on HBO's The Sopranos.

        On ABC, he's the 17-year-old son of architect Ben Madigan (Gabriel Byrne from End of Day, The Usual Suspects) and the grandson of Seamus Madigan (Roy Dotrice, Beauty and the Beast). The series will be pulled in January when ABC moves Who Wants to be a Millionaire to 8 p.m. Fridays.

        The young actor says working with two old pros wasn't as intimidating as he had thought.

        “What was nice is within the first day of being there, I was able to get comfortable,” he says. “It really became, for me, a collective working environment.”

        Mr. Hensley became interested in performing while attending Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colo., where he helped form an improvisational comedy troupe called Spitting Nonsense. He dropped out of college and headed to New York two years ago.

        His mother didn't expect her son to become a professional entertainer. She thought he had found his calling working summers on a Wyoming ranch.

        “It was a total surprise. But John has always had this real keen sense of humor, a quick take on things,” says Mrs. Asher, a counselor in the Thomas More TAP program, an accelerated degree program for adults wanting to complete a degree.

        Might Mr. Hensley complete his degree through Mom's program?

        “He probably would never do that. But I could see him going back to Wyoming,” Mrs. Asher says. “For me, I see "education' in a multitude of different ways. It just doesn't come in a degree. I see John as taking advantage of an opportunity.”

        Three original Madigan Men episodes will remain after this month, an ABC publicist says. The sitcom could return in spring or summer.

        McCoy here: Country singer Neal McCoy will perform live from the WUBE-FM (105.1) studio 7-9 a.m. Friday during the final Studio B concert of the year. He'll be promoting his new 24-7-365 album on the morning show with Dr. Don Carpenter, Eric “Bubba Bo” Boulanger and Amanda Orlando.

        Channel 9 news: Joe Webb's An Hour in Your HomeTown, which was second in its time period Dec. 4 (to CBS' King of Queens), will be repeated 8 p.m. Saturday (Channel 9).

        It's been quite a year for Mr. Webb's HomeTown, which was nearly canceled in a budget cut a year ago. After a reprieve from his Channel 9 bosses, Mr. Webb continued to produce two features a week. He also packaged the vignettes into three one-hour prime-time specials this year, and two one-hour daytime specials.

        The HomeTown special will be followed by Thelma & Louise (9 p.m. Saturday), pre-empting ABC's repeat of The Preacher's Wife. Channel 9 will make more money from the local movie and news special than from network programming.

        His HomeTown features air 6:55 a.m. weekdays; 6:25 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday; and 12:25 p.m. weekends.

        NYPD Returns: The return of NYPD Blue at 10 p.m. Tuesday Jan. 9 (Channels 9, 2) has set off a chain reaction in ABC's schedule.

        Once and Again will move to 10 p.m. Wednesday. Andre Braugher's Gideon's Crossing will switch to 10 p.m. Monday after the Monday Night Football season ends.

        Moving Once and Again to Wednesday puts it against NBC's Law & Order. But for many viewers, this will create a two-hour “Must See TV” block — The West Wing (9 p.m. NBC) and Once and Again (10 p.m. ABC).

        Not cursed: NBC has lifted the curse from Steven Weber's comedy. Cursed will now be known as The Weber Show (8:30 p.m. today, Channels 5, 22). NBC also has abandoned the original premise for the sitcom, about a man (Mr. Weber from Wings) being cursed by a blind date.

        E-mail Jkiesewetter@enquirer.com.

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