While they may seem to occupy far flung quadrants of the celebrity spectrum, Tom Cruise and Dr. Drew Pinsky share more than one might initially surmise. Both are charming and boyishly handsome men in their mid-to-late 40s, and both have devoted a good part of their lives to helping celebrities and non-celebrities alike overcome the various chemical dependencies preventing them from achieving their full potential as human beings. It's in the approach where they diverge, for while Pinsky employs a more traditional treatment of group therapy and close medical monitoring, Cruise instead adheres to the lesser-proven Scientological methodology of prescribed vitamins, rigorous shvitzing, and however many hundreds of auditing hours might be required to fully rid oneself of one's recreational-drug-loving thetans.

If you, like us, couldn't get enough of Celebrity Rehab—VH1's groundbreaking reality show born when it suddenly occurred to producers witnessing Brigitte Nielsen's umpteenth Strange Love blackout, "Hey—wait a second. Maybe we should get that woman some help...and film the entire thing!"—then you'll be thrilled to hear that the second batch of marginally famous in-patients are currently under Dr. Drew's care. Among this season's cast, the lovably problematic Jeff Conaway returns for another attempt at detox—and where Jeff goes, so too goes his demon-enabling succubus girlfriend Vicki. But there will be a whole slew of new faces, too, including—Higher-Power be with them—astonishingly sober life-coach, Gary Busey. From the press release:

Steven Tyler: 60, and in rehab. And not just any rehab, but Pasadena's Las Encinas Hospital of Celebrity Rehab fame where Dr. Drew practices. While his reps have yet to release a statement, using nothing but Aerosmith song titles, we'll now attempt to reconstruct exactly what happened: "Permanent Vacation" "Livin' On the Edge" "Monkey On My Back" "Push Comes To Shove" "My Fist Your Face" "You See Me Crying" "S.O.S. (Too Bad)" "Shame, Shame, Shame" "No More No More" "Sick As a Dog" "Jig Is Up" "Darkness" "I Wanna Know Why" "Crash""I'm Down" "Get a Grip" "Hole In My Soul" "Something's Gotta Give" "Attitude Adjustment" "Jesus Is on the Main Line"
[TMZ]

Night sweats? Crippling depression? Physical incapacitation? Yes, you're probably experiencing Celebrity Rehab withdrawal systems. To help ween you off the sweet high of a season spent freebasing Dr. Drew and his ragtag gang of Pasadena Recovery Center misfits, Defamer videographer Molly McAleer brings you outtakes from today's Very Special Tyra™, an episode devoted entirely to the behaviors and mating habits of the drunkus slutticus, more commonly known as the urban party girl. What the girls didn't see coming—not even the one who casually relates the time she totally forgot about the hookup-dampering tampon she was harboring—was that Dr. Drew himself was on hand for a Dr. Drew® Intervention™. With him, his lovely assistant Mary Carey, who saw in these troubled, ladies-of-the-ladies'-night a version of her own, formerly hammered self. Whether they chose to heed her warnings, fearful of a fate in which they too find themselves regaining consciousness on an unfamiliar bathroom floor (a scenario rendered all the more disconcerting once you crawl out of the stall and notice the row of urinals lining the wall) is really up to them. [Tyra]

Last night was the Celebrity Rehab reunion show. Your at-a-glance scorecard:
· Still sober: Brigitte Nielsen and Ricco Rodriguez;
· Still in denial: Chyna Joanie Doll-Laurer;
· Absent: Daniel Baldwin (not invited) and Jessica Sierra (currently back in treatment under Dr. Drew's care);
· Fresh off 3-day crack-out bender: Seth Binzer.
And then there is Jeff Conaway and Vikki Lizzi, the Stanley and Stella Kowalski of the Pasadena Recovery Center, whose every high-decibel, wheelchair-flinging domestic squabble was recorded for posterity by the ever-present reality cameras.

· It's Celebrity Rehab graduation, and without giving away too much, we'll just say that it's never too late for a breakthrough.

· Our favorite American Idol Season 7 moment so far, in handy animated gif form.

· Holy shit! Scubacar!

· It's official: Jermaine Jackson's transformation into the creepy Nipsey Russell Tinman from The Wiz that used to give us nightmares as a kid is complete.

· Lisa Marie Presley didn't want to have tell you about the pregnancy this way, but now that you've all had a good laugh at those fat pictures...Fine! It's baby weight! Are you satisfied now?

· And finally, someone sent this to us, asking, "Is this a tip?" We really have no idea, so we throw it out to you. Is this a tip?

Dr. Drew appeared on The View today to update the world on the status of his Celebrity Rehab patients (tally: one jailed, one Scientology convert, the rest currently missing). The hosts had a difficult time swallowing one point in particular, being why anyone would allow such a difficult and deeply private journey to play out for reality TV cameras. Could it be as simple of Joy Behar's blunt assessment that these personalities are most addicted to celebrity itself?

· In this clip from the increasingly depressing Celebrity Rehab, we learn that Brigitte Nielsen's husband doesn't exactly have a firm grasp on the English language. Either that or heavy bouts of boozing really give Brigitte a wicked case of the munchies.
· Never got around to seeing Cloverfield: The Movie but still want to see what the monster looks like? Then take a gander at the toy that's going to retail for $99.99! Why so pricy? Batteries ARE included. [Slashfilm]
· Anne Hathaway's armpits are positively resplendent (if you're into that sort of thing). [Goldenfiddle]
· Lily Allen has gone goth. Didn't see that one coming. [Daily Mail]
· How can this be? CBS decided to renew NUMB3RS but left How I Met Your Mother precariously perched on the bubble. Inconceivable! [TV Decoder]

Celebrity Rehab fans have by now become more than acquainted with Jeff Conaway—who, since the departure of a cameraphone-diddling Daniel Baldwin, has become the de facto father figure to the youngster-addicts. They too have met succubus girlfriend Vikki, whose every visit to the Pasadena facility inevitably ends in tears, screaming, and at least one wheelchair flying through a plate-glass window. Such turbulence is often the way with deeply creative partnerships, however, and as a reader pointed out, the two are so much more than just self-perpetuating co-dependants: They're an aspiring hip-hop superduo!

We've already acknowledged our powerlessness over the reality drug that is VH1's Celebrity Rehab, so we're not even going to preface this with any sort of disclaimer: This shit's some high-grade, Z-list mess-amphetamine we're dealing in here, and we're proud to declare ourselves a bitch to its pipe. Where to start! Daniel dismissed himself from the program, for, as best as we can make out, sending (ballet-class enthusiast!) Mary Carey suggestive cellphone images of his little Baldwin—a scandal that quickly wreaked untold havoc on the carefully controlled atmosphere of their burnout biodome. Semi-regular series villain Vicki, who seems less a human than a relapse-hastening she-gremlin sent down to producers from story editor heaven, was caught smuggling vodka in via Vitamin Water bottle during a visit to Jeff.

Last night's installment of Celebrity Rehab delivered perhaps its most poignant moment since decided to convert the Pasadena Recovery Center into a melancholy-tinged version of its Surreal Life house. In a move we'll assume is generally unnecessary inside the walls of a rehabilitation facility, Dr. Drew and his troubled, semi-famous charges staged an intervention on behalf of Joanie Chyna in a desperate attempt to figure out why, exactly, she's on the show; as an avowed non-alcoholic or drug-abuser, Joanie's very presence was so bedeviling to her fellow addicts that such a drastic measure was required to puzzle through the mystery of her casting.

Yes, yes, we know what we said last week (and, um, the week before that) about trying to shake the Celebrity Rehab monkey off our back, but, like the self-destructive guests of the Pasadena Recovery Center (except for Chyna, who's completely faking just to get some more Vh1 screen time), we're powerless against that which is bad for us. Now that the disclaimers about our own human failings are out of the way:

We know that we said we might not be able to continue on with our Celebrity Rehab viewership following its profoundly depressing premiere, as a weekly look at a largely incomprehensible, addiction-decimated Jeff Conaway would just be too disturbing to bear, comedic cutaways to a libido-overdriven Mary Carey's quest to achieve some inpatient sexual satisfaction notwithstanding. Still, we couldn't resist taking a peek at last night's episode, during which it was revealed that even in his mostly incapacitated, wheelchair-bound state, Conaway managed to smuggle in some cocaine.

Our hopes that VH1's Celebrity Rehab would be a Surreal Life-style romp documenting the antics of hilariously mismatched, semifamous roommates as they argue over neglected chores while soaking in the Pasadena Recovery Center's ten-person hot tub was, as it turns out, profoundly misguided. Other than brief moments of comic relief provided by the confiscation of porn star Mary Carey's penetrative toys and a staffer's attempts at keeping the Guy From Crazytown safely outside of Carey's radius of copulation, last night's premiere was mostly an oppressively bleak look at former Taxi and Grease star Jeff Conaway's debilitating addictions. (Click the above image to play a clip of his arrival at the clinic, accompanied by a freshly drained bottle of Dom Perignon and his enabling girlfriend.)

If there's any question as to why we've been eagerly anticipating Celebrity Rehab, the latest offering from VH1's Reality Department/ Non-Skank-Romance Division, since first being teased by footage of Jeff Conaway blowing a rail of fauxcaine, one need only take a look at this ABC News headline, which practically bullet-points every stage of Dr. Drew Pinsky's clinically-proven-to-induce-ratings 4-step program. (Mop-wielding orderlies are typically on high alert prior to Step 3.) Distancing himself from University of the Web-accredited quacks like Dr. Phil and other exploitative reality fare covering the same ground, Actual Medical Doctor Pinsky explains how his show is far more than just Celebrity Apprentice with piles of blow and a stocked bar (which, now that we mention it, would make Trump's show a lot more interesting):

While we eagerly await Fox's higher budget, more ambitious attempts at pushing the reality-TV envelope this January (we just took the fourth episode for the show's first heart explosion in the Defamer office pool), VH1 will soon be offering the kind of low-grade, humiliation-based programming that will get us to The Moment of Truth's premiere. Fishbowl LA directs us to these promotional "home videos" from the network's upcoming Celebrity Rehab series featuring two of the show's nine C-list guinea pigs (Taxi's Jeff Conaway! A guy from Crazytown we don't recognize!) simulating the destructive, drug-abusing behavior only a team of caring Celebreality producers and their unflinching camera can help them eradicate.