If the Spears Meltdown was looking to be missing any one thing, it was probably crossover appeal, an oversight quickly remedied when Dr. Phil's Tough Love Intervention Tour '08 made a surprise stop at her Cedars-Sinai hospital room. Little could he have known the outrage that such a selfless endeavor would elicit from the press (and admiration from Dr. Joyce Brothers), and after two straight days of pummeling, it turns out the Very Special Episode to Save Britney is being scrapped. Sadly, we'll never know for sure what transpired during that 15 minute conversation, but thanks to Defamer videographer Molly McAleer now you can watch how the butting of the famously bald heads might have gone down after the jump.

The now-peaceful world of onetime international megastar Tom Cruise, who had recently settled in to a quiet life of running a studio that could produce the kind of personal, little-seen vehicles that would help reduce his public profile enough to free him up to attend Redskins games and personally accompany daughter Suri to her ball-crawl romps at the Celebrity Centre's in-house Gymboree, has been temporarily rocked by accusations made in the new Andrew Morton tell-all Tom Cruise: An Unauthorised Biography, explosive excerpts from which were published in The Daily Mail this weekend. Scary Hollywood Lawyer and Designated Protector of the Cruise Brand Bert Fields was already hurling himself upon the grenades Morton had lobbed in the direction of his prized client (whom the author says has ascended to the position of the vice-pope of Scientology), especially a headline-grabbing, "sick and bizarre" section that claims some Scientologists believe that Suri is L. Ron Hubbard's baster-baby, according to the Mail:

Since being released after just one day from her 5150 Hold (a state-mandated suicide watch, and now also the latest secret menu ordering style at In-N-Out), People is reporting that the troubled™ singer was not in fact "under the influence" of a controlled substance, as believed by authorities, and wildly speculated about by us. Quoting a number of "reliable sources," it turns out the only thing Spears was mainlining was a candle-heated spoonful of black tar crazy:

Hollywood's refusal to toss any new-release chum (with the exception of a single horror offering) into the waters of America's multilplexes just seemed to intensify the public's appetite for the stale Nic Cage/Will Smith/Chipmunk-flavored morsels already floating there. Your Monday morning romp through this weekend's box office results:

In solidarity with the Writers Guild of America, with Conan and Letterman and with Katie Holmes we're growing a strike beard. Our Solzhenitsyn-like beard has been growing since November 5th, the first day of the strike. Let's see your strike beards. Send them to tips@gawker.com

And you thought it was all James Toback's fault. Wrong-o. Back in 1977, someone with more money than brains gave a then eight-year old Brett Ratner a Panasonic camcorder, effectively launching his career (and irreparably harming the cinema as we knew it). We learned this spicy bit of trivia about the frisky fauxter when we tagged along with our geeky brothers at Gizmodo to a Panasonic "presser" at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas earlier today. Hold your breath, the worst is yet to come.

As it turns out, the 72-Hour Strapped To A Gurney While Being Monitored By Five Burly Orderlies Super Mental Breakdown Watch under which Britney Spears was being detained at Cedars Sinai's vaunted Celebrity Meltdown Ward is not quite as restrictive in its patient-retention policies as we'd assumed, as Spears has already left the hospital following just a little over a day of crazy-containment.

· The Return of Late Night: Taking first-guest bets. Our first tantalizing taste of Dave beard. Countdown to our last. Letterman's kickline. What's worse?: Leno's restriction-busting monologue or his impovised banter? Craig Ferguson makes sweet love to Paul Shaffer's head. Conan clobbers in the Beard Wars and ratings.
· Britney's (Latest) Breakdown: Showdown at the homestead. The most popular ambulance in town. Surveilling the wreckage. When life imitates Dorffian art. Speculating on the B.U.I.
· A-listers' strike silence is deafening.
· We welcome someone new to the Defamer family.
· If you're even mildly aroused by Miley Cyrus's girl-on-girl candy-sharing photos, then Satan is likely knocking at your door.
· Griffin & Cooper a Shields and Yarnell for a new generation.
· David Cross turning into a feces gourmand for taking a role in Alvin and the Chipmunks.
· Lindsay Lohan broke, stumbles, but appreciated. C'mon—there's far worse that Lindsay.
· SAG members boycott the Golden Globes. Here's just a taste of the soaked Keira Nightie you'll be missing.
· The deadly hands and breasts that win elections.
· "Where?!" "Diagonally!" "Pretty sneaky, Beyoncé."

· Did you miss last night's premiere of Semi-celebrity Apprentice, Donald Trump and NBC's attempt to breathe new life into a moribund reality franchise by asking Gene Simmons, Big Pussy, a professional naked person, and a lesser Baldwin (there are other cast members, probably, but we can't think of them off the top of our head—oh, Omarosa's on it too!) to sell hot dogs? We did. But after watching this three-minute recap, we feel like we're all caught up and ready for next week's episode. (Spoilers ahead if you click the thumbnail to watch the vdieo.)
· Clearly, changing the title of Welcome to Valkenvania to Nothing But Trouble doomed the Chase/Aykroyd/Candy/Moore classic to failure.
· "I always wanted to be No. 1 at something, but I didn't think it would be something like this."
· Depending on the type of person you are, what you see at this site is either going to make or ruin your weekend.

Awwww...The LEGO Indiana Jones Set comes with an adorable array of little poseable Nazis, and its own tiny, precious Ark of the Covenant. Don't open it though—it'll instantly melt their molded-plastic faces right off! [Gizmodo]

According to an announcement made by Screen Actors Guild president Alan Rosenberg this afternoon, the members of his union refuse to undermine their striking WGA brethren by crossing the WGA picket line at the Golden Globes:

Friday
· Music round-up: Seawolf play at the Natural History Museum (where you can pet actual seawolves in their underwater petting zoo!), Circle Jerks are at the Henry Fonda, and You, Me & Iowa play Spaceland.
· It's National Bird Day! Did you forget? Celebrate Silverlake's Thinkspace Gallery presents Fight for Flight, an exhibition of ornithological artwork from Andy Kehoe, P. Williams, Allison Sommers, and others. [via Flavorpill]
·Psychic Debra Lynn Katz will sign copies of her book You Are Psychic:The Art of Clairvoyant Reading and Healing at Many Paths Book Store.

Though things on the Britney Spears front had been quiet enough over the past handful of hours that the ambulance sirens that had been ringing in our heads since late last night had finally started to subside, there's now an update: As one might expect in a case in which a troubled mother has been placed on Super Double 5150 Hold 72-Hour Mental Lockdown Watch, the court has awarded sole custody of Spears' children to comparative paragon of stability Kevin Federline and suspended her visitation rights until, in the oddly unedited words of an exasperated child-services commissioner, "This Britney person can keep her shit together for, like, five consecutive hours. I fucking give up, really. I'm going to Cabo until March. If she still wants the kids back then, she can call me." [Access Hollywood]

David Lynch is disgusted that anyone would watch a movie on a phone. "You will never in a trillion years experience the film...you'll be cheated," he says in this clip from the special edition of Inland Empire. While it's obvious that films like Eraserhead demand something better than 480x320 pixels, is Lynch honestly that horrified that someone might want to watch "Failure to Launch" on the subway?

Because Defamer is committed to making its readers aware of exciting local real estate opportunities each time a red-hot tip lands in our inbox, we direct you to this listing announcing the availability of an historic two-bed/two-bath property nestled in a highly desirable cranny of Laurel Canyon:

For an early afternoon Britney palate cleanser, we thought we'd offer you this Tyra clip of South Carolinian Miss Teen U.S.A. 2007 candidate Caitlin Upton, who has secured herself a lasting place in the Annals of American Density for her now-legendary 91-word response to a question about the scourge of geographical ignorance currently plaguing our population.

Sad news for the bear-chasers and drifter-fetishists who'd been so delighted by returning Late Show host David Letterman's recent facial hair growth: On tonight's show, Letterman will announce an on-air beard-shaving stunt scheduled for Monday that will restore his face to its smooth-as-Paul-Shaffer's-head, pre-strike state. Those who fear their newfound attraction to the comedian will fade with each tragic swipe of a barber's blade should make sure they set their TiVos to record tonight's program, lest they find themselves separated from the hirsute object of their late-night affection until CBS is ready to start rerunning these sure-to-be wildly popular "Letterbear" episodes. [NY Daily News]

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often! Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you saw Frodo Baggins overwhelmed with pre-Christmas shopping bags on the 3rd St. Promenade.

It's time again to express our profound love for this week's sponsors, all whom we know we can depend on to fish us out of the bathtub and cradle us in their big, strong arms until the paramedics arrive after our alarmingly frequent meltdowns. If you'd like to advertise on Defamer and become an important part of our support network, see this page.

· Unknown actress Gemma Arterton has been anointed as the newest Bond girl, with her agent confirming her "nice-sized role" in Bond 22, though it's still unclear whether her part will fall into the "superspy sexual conquest" or "extremely attractive, but sexually unavailable, Mi6 functionary" categories of 007-supporting females [THR]
· Members of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts are (preliminarily, at least) head-over-heels in blighty* love for Atonement, listing the Joe Wright adaptation 17 times in their awards longlist (a mere 15 options per category!) for the BAFTAS, an announcement that mostly serves to let the public know which movies have been pre-snubbed for their eventual nominations. [*We only put that in for the benefit of our readers who are driven insane by Varspeak.] [Variety]