· Network executives are trying to make sense of the brave, new, post-strike world they suddenly find themselves in, either taking this unprecedented opportunity to blow up their development system, or shrugging it off as a "blip" and going back to the old, comfortable ways of doing business (i.e., throwing a bunch of money at talent and pilots). Also, tough decisions need to be made about which series should be rushed back into production to finish up this abbreviated season, which should be put off until the fall, and which should be put out of their misery after losing their momentum. [Variety]
· Unsurprisingly, utterly fearless NBC perfect storm Ben Silverman (motto: "Let's do stuff!") is seizing the chance to shake things up inside the Peacock Family by shuffling around some executives and eliminating its largely vestigial current series department. [THR]

NBC's Friday Night Lights spent most of its first season enjoying official Critical Darling status while enduring ratings just north of zilch. However, during its second season, some early-season creative missteps began to erode the large base of critical support it once enjoyed. Making matters even worse, its ratings remained abysmal, which led the Peacock Emperor to make this now infamous pronouncement about the show: "Unfortunately, no one watches it. That's the thing with shows. People have to watch them." (Ed Note: SNAP!) These two factors have led to widespread speculation that tonight's episode of FNL will end up as being both the season and series finale. But wait, all is not lost. Those rabble rousers over at Best Week Ever have a plan to save the show! A plan that involves ... light bulbs?

· According to "an industry study conducted by informed sources" which Var was allowed to view on a "confidential basis" (we'll let you concoct your own theories about a trenchcoat-clad Nick Counter giving a sneak preview of the figures in a dark corner of the Beverly Center parking lot), the cost of the writers strike could reach $3 billion if it drags on for 60 to 90 more days. Also, in case you haven't heard: the national economy is headed down the shitter. [Variety]
· While NBC isn't canceling any of its current pilot scripts (unlike recent project-droppers CBS, Fox, and The CW), Jeff Zucker says that going forward, the company will cut back on traditional pilot development to focus its resources on ordering episodes of whatever Colombian telenovela or Dutch game-show Peacock programming-importation expert Ben Silverman thinks he can rush onto his primetime schedule without too much expensive tinkering. [Variety]
[After the jump: ast night's Idol numbers; CEOs and writers chatting; a Buffy reunion]

In an interview with TV Week following his selection as one of the trade publication's "12 To Watch," always-quotable NBC perfect storm Ben Silverman was asked to reflect on his oft-controversial tenure as the network's designated rock-star and what, if anything, he might have done differently if given a second chance. But while he seems to admit that he could stand to work on his propensity for baring his razor-sharp, rival-eviscerating Peacock talons each time he's placed in the threatening presence of a recording device (the infamous "D-Girls" and "Ugly, Prom-Ruining WGA Nerds" incidents immediately come to mind), he still finds his own candor fun and refreshing. In short: Ben Silverman is someone Ben Silverman would want to hang with:

· NBC's Jeff Zucker has been strongly hinting that his network's upfront presentation to advertisers may be scaled back this year, if not eliminated entirely; in lieu of the customary "dog and pony show," Zucker may instead ask lieutenant Ben Silverman to show a 30-second clip of American Gladiators injuries to a ballroom full of media buyers, then circle the room with a burlap sack into which they can place the portion of their ad budgets they'd like to spend on the Peacock's new primetime schedule. [Variety]
· Stop the presses! Sundance's money-burning glory days may have briefly returned! Focus Features has reportedly closed an early morning, locked-in-the-CAA-condo-until-someone-wildly-overpays, $10 million deal for "high-school satire" Hamlet 2. [THR]
[After the jump: The WGA/AMPTP Talks: A New Hope; Selma Blair is close to joining the NBC family; Gladiators still popular. ]

It was just a little over a year ago when then-NBC president Kevin Reilly, obviously depressed by the prospect of helplessly enduring another winter TV season in which all of his network's midweek offerings would be vaporized by Fox's Nielsen Death Star (obviously not to be confused with Hollywood's other destruction-dealing edifice), when he allowed himself this once delusional-seeming ray of hope at the TCAs: "Not to be shitty about it, but maybe they'll have a bad run. Nothing burns that bright forever. Some day it will be uncool to watch American Idol."

· Wondering how Tracy Morgan is spending his downtime from "30 Rock"? Dave Letterman asks the tough questions, the audience gets the uncomfortably honest answer.

· Honest to blog, we can't wait to see Juno Jr.!

· LAist has a strong to very strong interview with our longtime friends/cohorts, The Fug Girls.

· The terminally boring Harry Potter saga may have just gotten one film longer. We're going out on a limb here, but we're going to guess that Voldemort doesn't end up defeating Harry in this one, either.

· Now we know what Justin Timberlake sees when he wipes the sleepy crust away from his eyes each morning.

· We almost ralphed just typing this. We can't imagine what will happen if you actually watch it. That's right, it's the Tiffany "New York" Pollard sex tape.

· And to close the day on a bit of unfortunate but necessary news, tomorrow's Ben Silverman Prom has been postponed. Not cancelled, mind you, just postponed.

10:01pm: ABC, hope you were taking notes. If any of your ideas for The Oscars resemble any of the ideas that NBC utilized tonight in their sham of a "press conference," your federal broadcasting license will be revoked. Herbert Eugene Ives would've been ashamed of your performance tonight, Silverman. You should go to sleep knowing that.

Moving quickly to fill what must have been a staggering demand for appropriate attire for the recently announced Benjamin Silverman High Winter Prom, Strike Swag has just unveiled the official B.S. High Fighting Cocks t-shirt, an item that's sure to be the first choice of any nerdy WGA attendee who doesn't have a pumpkin tuxedo in the closet that he can break out for the dance. (Those who plan on showing their Fighting Cocks pride will be happy to know their purchase benefits the Writers Guild Foundation Industry Support Fund.)

Rather than take offense at NBC prom king Ben Silverman's sneering attack on the jealous, unattractive Writers Club nerds who forced the cancellation of the Enchantment Under the Hollywood Sea Dance he'd been looking forward to since last semester, some WGA members instead have generously decided to give the senior class co-chairman the party he so badly wanted to keep alive. Next Thursday, United Hollywood and Hot in Hollywood will throw him the Benjamin Silverman High Winter Prom outside NBC's Burbank studios, hoping that their guest of honor and date Nick Counter will at least drop by to share one spotlight waltz in front of their picketing, tuxedoed schoolmates.

NBC 's Ben Silverman has heard your cries for more American Gladiators, TV fans starved for anything that's not a CSI rerun, and is now reportedly mulling how many more episodes of his just-launched hit series to order. (His initial instinct is restraint: "We don't want to order 60 of them.") Also, he's cooking up something so super-secret for the new show's finale lead-in to his upcoming Knight Rider movie that, "If I [told you], Wolf and Hulk would show up at your door." Our best guess: a live WGA Nerds Vs. Gladiators deathmatch between scribes kidnapped from the picket line and his well-muscled minions, during which the prom-ruining meanies he so disdains will be pummeled in front of millions of viewers for his amusement. [TV Week]

The agonizingly slow demise of the Golden Globes ceremony yesterday, death-throes NBC valiantly tried to stave off with some unorthodox emergency surgical procedures that would've left their awards-show patient hideously mangled but still clincally alive, couldn't have been easy on network-topping perfect storm Ben Silverman.
Obviously devastated by the sobering realization that nothing he could do might save the doomed Globes from its strike-mandated press conference fate, he reached out to Ryan Seacrest, always a compassionate shoulder to cry on in difficult times like these, to lament how the "ugly" and "mean" nerd-bullies of the WGA were ruining his Hollywood prom:

Is the entertaining feud between delightfully unedited NBC perfect storm Ben Silverman and ABC's Steve McPherson spilling over into their networks' primetime schedules? ABC just moved the last new episode of Nielsen juggernaut Grey's Anatomy to January 10th, forcing NBC to shift the premiere of Celebrity Apprentice for the second time this week in apparent attempts to get the vulnerable show out of Grey's destructive path. There is no truth to the rumor that McPherson's scheduling move was announced to Silverman via the delivery of a muffin basket accompanied by a note reading, "Who's the little D-girl now, Big Ben?" [THR]

Starved for content as his network exhausts its reservoir of scripted programming, NBC perfect storm Ben Silverman says he'll soon repurpose episodes of USA's Monk and Psych to run on the Peacock flagship, but he claims the plan is more long-planned corporate shitergy than a strike-induced panic move. "A lot of this we would be doing anyway,' he said, according to TV Week. "The strike is pointing a flashlight on it.'" He then continued, his once-brave facade suddenly cracking, "Did you see how badly Clash of the Choirs shit the bed last night? My entire universe is crumbling around me. If dueling gangs of gospel singers isn't going to be a hit, I don't have a clue what's going to get us through until we get The Office back." [TV Week]

From the moment an all-celebrity version of Donald Trump's ongoing, competitive reality TV work-placement extravaganza The Apprentice was announced, the world eagerly awaited word on which A-list talent the Manhattan land baron would select to fill the seats in his Board Room of the Damned. After winnowing down a list of 125 celebrity applicants ("They were all begging to be on the show..."), 14 were chosen:

· NBC drops out of the Television Critics Association winter press tour due to the writers strike, a move that will rob reporters of the chance to witness a retaliatory beatdown of Peacock perfect storm Ben Silverman by the network-running rivals he recently disparaged as "D-girls". [Variety]
· Entourage's Kevin Dillon joins Emma Roberts, Don Cheadle and Lisa Kudrow in hotly anticipated canine-housing drama Hotel for Dogs. [THR]
· Wistfully envisioning a time when writers and studios can once again skip down Hollywood Blvd hand-in-hand, New Line signs Neil LaBute to script a remake of The Woman Next Door once the strike is over. Helen Mirren's husband [Ed. note—HAAACKFORD!] to direct. [Variety]

· The writers strike could result in a windfall for Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, who are reportedly in talks with NBC for the acquisition of blogtastic new online series Quarterlife, which is scheduled to premiere on the MySpaces on Sunday. If the alleged deal should fall through, forward-thinking network president Ben Silverman will announce that once he's out of new episodes of Bionic Woman, he'll run an hour of grainy YouTube footage of cheerleading-competition bloopers in its place. [THR]
· Had enough of the writers strike yet? Good news: a newer, fresher walkout by the stagehands union could be on its way, forcing Broadway productions to go dark. As we've said before: Strike fever, catch it! [Variety]
· A two-hour, crossover block of CSI/Without a Trace episodes brought CBS a ratings victory Thursday night, as viewers flocked to the network to enjoy every moment of their last few weeks of barely differentiated crime-procedural programming. [THR]

In its new issue, Esquire profiles compulsively quotable NBC perfect storm Ben Silverman, who apparently has not been too busy monitoring the foreign airwaves for lowbrow, easily importable reality TV formats he can plug into the holes the writers strike will soon blow in his network's schedule to publicly invite his favorite rivals over for a good, old-fashioned dick-measuring contest. We begin with Silverman's dismissal of network nemeses Kevin "The One Whose Job I Was Begged To Take" Reilly (now of Fox) and Steve "I Gave Him A Huge Hit He Didn't Even Want" McPherson as D-girls, fightin' words if we've ever heard any:

Even though yesterday's Hollywood Radio and TV Society luncheon and panel discussion has to be declared an overall disappointment because NBC perfect storm Ben Silverman and combative ABC president Steve McPherson, appearing together for the first time since McPherson challenged the network rival who took his best buddy's job to "be a man," failed to come to the blows the assembled journalists not-so-secretly hoped for, director/producer Barry Sonnenfeld did earn positive notices ("One of the HRTS' more lively moderators in recent memory!" raves Variety) for his hosting work at the event. THR compiles a greatest hits package of Sonnenfeld's attempts at comic relief:

· Are things getting a little testy between Joy and Whoopi? Maybe we're reading too much into some rude interruptions and a couple of possible stink-eyes, but we could be looking at the beginning of a Hasselbeck/Rosie kind of dynamic developing on The View. It's been way too long since blood has been spilled on that set.
· It took much longer than we anticipated for Bobby Brown's heart to break after losing Whitney.
· Esquire names its Sexiest Woman Alive (Until Next Year), prompting Maxim to retaliate in a rather uncharitable fashion.
· Nora Ephon has made us rethink everything we thought we knew about egg-white omelets.
· NBC's perfect storm never mises a chance to work a party.