TV's next breakthrough comedy character could be an Iranian handyman in Whoopi Goldberg's Manhattan hotel.

In NBC's Whoopi (8 p.m. Tuesday), actor Omid Djalili (The Mummy, Spy Game) plays Iranian fix-it man Nasim, who was "trained by the Iranian militia to build a missile system - which we do not have."

Called to fix a broken television set, he says: "This TV is more dead than Saddam's first defense minister."

Oscar-winning Goldberg, as singer-turned-hotel owner Mavis Rae, also keeps a few good lines for herself.

She gets in a shot at President George W. Bush's inability to pronounce "nuclear" correctly by screaming at the TV: "If he can say Condoleezza, he can say nuclear!"

John Kiesewetter