Q: It was such fun to see the “I Love Lucy” episode about her making the TV commercial, but in color. When was that first shown?

— Jane Foster, via email

A: If you mean when it was first shown in color, that December CBS special was the first time. The past several years, the “Lucy” holiday specials have paired a colorized Christmas episode with a different one of the show’s other classics; this last time, it was the story when Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball, of course) crashed her husband Ricky’s (Desi Arnaz) television show by doing an ad for the health tonic Vitameatavegamin — and getting progressively more drunk on the stuff, since it also contained alcohol.

“Lucy Does a TV Commercial” (the actual title of the story) originally aired on CBS toward the end of the sitcom’s first season on May 5, 1952, and Ball cited it as her favorite episode of the series. Small wonder, since it became so iconic, all most people need to do is see a picture of her with that bottle in her hand to know exactly what’s being referred to.

Q: I heard that Edward Burns’ “Public Morals” has been canceled. Is that true?

— Joseph Carter, Providence, Rhode Island

A: It is, but it can’t be said Burns didn’t try everything in his power to make the show work … including writing and directing all the episodes as well as starring in them, and also engaging very actively with fans on social media. TNT even tried to give it a boost by releasing several more episodes on various platforms right after the on-air premiere, but the first-season ratings ultimately weren’t of a level to prompt the network to order a second one.

Q: It was nice to see Michael Gross and Meredith Baxter back together in “Becoming Santa.” Didn’t they make a Christmas movie together before?

— Barbara Hogan, Boulder, Colorado

A: They did. In 2012, the “Family Ties” alums teamed in the holiday tale “Naughty or Nice,” one of several projects for which they’ve reteamed since their shared series run ended. The ever-pleasant Gross told us that for those, he and Baxter were in Los Angeles, so they’d go their separate ways at the end of the day. Lifetime’s recent “Becoming Santa” was made in Vancouver, British Columbia, so he and Baxter had more time to catch up; they stayed in the same hotel and would have meals and ride to work together, making for what Gross termed a very happy experience.

Q: What ever happened to Rachel Ward, who starred opposite Richard Chamberlain years ago in “The Thorn Birds”?

— Nancy Capps, via email

A: Married to fellow “Thorn Birds” star Bryan Brown since 1983, when ABC first aired the miniseries, the British-born Ward went on to do such other projects as “Against All Odds” and “After Dark, My Sweet,” but she has preferred to stay behind the scenes in more recent years. She started writing and directing short subjects, and she graduated to guiding full-length features with the 2009 release of “Beautiful Kate,” which she also adapted from a Newton Thornburg novel. (Whether the sound of “Thornburg” and “Thorn Birds” is merely a coincidence in her case, we do not know.)

Ward did return to acting in 2007 with a role in the Australian series “Rain Shadow,” but she went back to directing on such other shows there as “Rake” (which Fox adapted into a short-lived American version starring Greg Kinnear) and “Devil’s Playground.”

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