If there was any doubt that The CW has absolutely no confidence in "Hidden Palms" — and there wasn't much — now there's none.

Network programmers never found a place to schedule "Palms" during the regular season. Apparently (sarcasm alert), the feeling was they just had too darn many good shows on the air already.

So The CW didn't premiere "Palms" until the summer. And now it's burning the show off twice as fast as it normally would.

Tonight and next week (Wednesday, June 27), the network will air back-to-back episodes of "Hidden Palms" at 7 and 8 p.m. on Ch. 30. Which means the season finale (episode No. 8) will air at 7 p.m. on the Fourth of July ... when nobody is watching TV.

If you've started watching "Hidden Palms," don't stop. We're promised an answer to the mystery surrounding the death of Eddie, who, we're given to believe, didn't commit suicide but was murdered.

And, by the way, "Hidden Palms" isn't a great show but it's still better than just about everything The CW aired this past season.

THE SHOW is a reunion of sorts for Sharon Lawrence and Gail O'Grady, who were both on "NYPD Blue" from 1993-99.

"We loved working together 60 years ago," O'Grady joked, "and to have an opportunity to get on to the same cast for another show — we were thrilled."

But their "Blue" characters — Lawrence played Sylvia Costas and O'Grady played Donna Abandando — weren't exactly close.

"We never spoke," Lawrence said. "I mean, aside from 'hello' in a scene. Yes, we would hang out in the trailers but never had much interaction as characters. I would sweep by, comment on her hairstyle and continue on to the very rough and tumble world of cops and broken hearts."

That's not the case in "Wild Palms." Karen Hardy (O'Grady) and Tess Wiatt (Lawrence) are next-door neighbors who become friends even though their teenage sons are not.

"On this show ... we're actually good pals," Lawrence said. "And I get to wear the big hair and she's the one who looks as if she has a bit more reasonable sense in her brain than my character does."

Which is a bit of a role reversal from the characters they played on "NYPD Blue."

"It's a real pleasure to actually have a friendship, too, between women," Lawrence said.

And a chance to work "with another actor that you respect, and that you value their work," said O'Grady, who called Lawrence "an old buddy" and "somebody that I respect their work so much over the years."

---

E-mail: pierce@desnews.com