· Fox has cut back its episode order for The OC from 22 to 16, a move that will surely enrage fans still clinging to the idea that the show will eventually recapture some of its first-season, every-episode-a-party-and-a-fight glory. [Variety]
· Charles Gibson tearfully departs Good Morning America without instigating a blood feud with Barbara Walters. [THR]
· Good reviews and that paradigm-changing seven-day opening weekend for Superman Returns leave Warner Bros. executives confident that they will be blowing celebratory rails off the backsides of solid-gold hookers when the first box office numbers roll in. [Variety]
· Note to THR photo editors: No one should ever have to see an image of Brad Pitt crying—unless he's standing over a box containing Gwyneth Paltrow's head. [THR]
· Universal and Imagine buy Michael Straczynski's thriller The Changeling, with the intent of turning over the project to director Ron Howard for a ritualistic draining of nuance and complexity [Variety]

At the risk of touching off a new wave of hysteria like the one that gripped the entertainment industry during the Great Killer Bee Scare Of Mid-April, we pass along this breaking report of swarm activity on the Fox lot:

· Audiences already seem tired of Al Gore telling them of the cataclysms that await us because of global warming. Maybe they can add a meteor the size of Texas hurtling toward Los Angeles in the second act and revive interest. [Variety]
· J.K. Rowling announces that at least two main characters will die in the seventh and final Harry Potter book, and that their names are "Harry" and "Hermione." OK, we made that last part up because it's probably going to wind up being Ron Weasley's twin brothers once her publisher offers her $250 million to do one more book. [THR]
· Halle Berry teams with writer Angela Nissel to develop
an HBO comedy series about "a biracial woman and her two friends as they tackle racial and financial issues post-college." We're not even going to try and make that sound more interesting. [Variety]
· Hell's Kitchen wins Monday night for Fox, beating NBC's Treasure Hunters. We should note that we're officially changing our allegiance from Team Busty Grad Students to Team Busty Miss USA. [THR]
· The director and writer of The Devil Wears Prada film will reteam to adapt further chick lit evil for the big screen, this time for a I Don't Know How She Does It movie. [Variety]

· Tony Soprano plans to meet with Paulie and Silvio in the back room of the Bada Bing, where he will tell them they're out of the their fucking minds if they think they're gonna shake down HBO for $200K an episode, ignoring Dr. Melfi's advice that he should try and see the dispute from the perspective of two character actors who are feeling somewhat underappreciated. [THR]
· Fox will launch almost all of its shows before the fall season "officially" begins, trying to get viewers interested in the series before they disappear for weeks because of the baseball playoffs. [Variety]
· HBO is in talks with "Everybody Loves" Ray Romano and 24 creators Joel Surnow and Bob Cochran for a comedy series in which Romano plays a billionaire with only six months to live. [THR]
· The MPAA and the the producers of football n' Jesus flick Facing the Giants are squabbling over whether the film received a PG instead of a G because the ratings boards finds Christianity too scary for small children. [Variety]
· The WGA East and West approve Constitutional amendments that will settle an ugly feud between the coastal factions without tragic gunplay. [THR]

· The hands-down winner of the most intriguing lede of the day: "Few grown men get as fired up about princesses and fairies as Andy Mooney..." Also, "Magic blingdom" is a pretty amusing title. Is everyone at Variety totally high today? [Variety]
· Bloodthirsty CBS Corp warlord Les Moonves muses about taking baby-steps towards getting into the movie business, with an eye towards eventually crushing Viacom rival Tom Freston's Paramount product. [THR]
· HBO's Lucky Louie pulls in some decent ratings numbers after a week's worth of showings following its low-rated series premiere. [Variety]
· Natalie Portman and Eric Bana are in negotiations to star in The Other Boleyn Girl, a period drama whose lavish costumes will probably afford Portman yet another opportunity to avoid tastefully done cinematic nudity. [THR]
· News Corp wil expand MySpace into countries like France and Germany, where teenagers previously lacked a way to share their favorite Fall Out Boy songs in a web-based medium. [Variety]

Having exhausted virtually every personality archetype around which to build an hour of televised domestic disintegration, the producers of Trading Spouses are now turning to the heretofore untapped, stereotype-rich subculture of nerdy college professors. InsideHigherEd.com, a website for the tweed-and-corduroy set, will not submit without a fight, however:

The matter of just who was first to come up with the visionary concept behind Fox's reality competition So You Think You Can Dance?—a paradigm-redefining twist on the American Idol format in which contestants dance before a panel of judges instead of sing—is now thrown into question with news of a lawsuit brought against the show's producers:

· CBS affiliates argue that they shouldn't have to to pay the $3 million fine levied for airing Without a Trace's Very Special Teen Orgy episode because every complaint filed against the show came from the websites of religious crackpot organizations Parents Television Council and the American Family Association, not "real people." And as we all know, real people love nothing better than watching teenagers simulate group sex on network television. [THR]
· Because we know how hot and bothered it makes you to hear about how much advertising time the networks have sold, Fox and CBS have filled 70% of their ad slots, NBC 40%, and ABC is waiting for better offers on Lost and Grey's Anatomy. You may now take five minutes for a cold shower and then return to work. [Variety]
· Fox's Rupert Murdoch decides not to create his own search engine, and instead will choose between Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft to provide search services that will allow MySpace's millions of lurking pedophiles to more efficiently find the profiles of vulnerable teens. Or totally rad emo bands, depending on their mood. [Variety]
· Shitergy Update! Corporate monolith News Corp plans on exploiting every part of its multimedia empire to promote next year's Simpsons movie, including forcing president/COO Peter Chernin to dress as a different Simpsons character each day and speak only in amusing soundbites from the popular animated series. [THR]
· We have no idea what the basic cable series starring Kevin Bacon's wife is about, when it airs, or even what network it's on, but 8.3 million viewers watched its second-season premiere. We've got to start branching out from TiVo'd episodes of Blow Out one of these days. [Variety]

Both the LAT and NY Times came up with the inspired idea of casting studio bigshots as superheroes, though the subjects of the two articles have far less interesting powers than a certain caped gentlemen whose heterosexuality is currently under siege. As far as we can tell, Disney "brainiac" Ed Catmull's ability is to be unconditionally loved by all who come into contact with him, while phrases like "It's no secret that it took a long time for Tom and I to work things out," "his reactions are never personal," and "his tendency to raise his voice when he gets worked up takes getting used to," coyly reveal the super-unlikabilty that Fox's Tom Rothman was imbued with after prolonged exposure to a radioactive pile of box office cash.

· Congress passes a bill that raises indecency fines from $32,500 to $325,000 per infraction, causing Les Moonves to rethink his plans for a hilarious "teen orgy" Two and a Half Men sweeps week stunt. [Variety]
· Fox orders a script for a 24 movie from the show's creators, but holds out on a greenlight until after season 6 debuts. Fans rejoice, though the projectionists' union is already up in arms over the prospects of the 144 reels of film they'll be required to load for its proposed running time of 24 hours 7 minutes. [Variety]
· Everything following the first word from this Variety story about the World Cup airing on Univision ("Goooooooal!!!!!!!") was, quite frankly, an o- and !-deficient letdown. [Variety]
· Fox wins the week with So You Think You Can Dance?, a competition best enjoyed on a cocktail of Hydrocodones, Klonopins and vodka, and followed by a good, old fashioned Mama whuppin'. [THR]
· Steve Carell will return to the next season of The Office with his salary more than doubled to around $175,000 per episode, a shooting schedule that accomodates his various movie commitments, and on-call, personal manscaping services from a dutifully indebted Kevin Reilly. [THR]

In what had to be a difficult call for the AP's senior entertainment editor, the above headline beat out the equally compelling "Carla Gugino Craving Something Salty" for featured story status.

The evil promotional procession of The Omen's instantly recognizable triple sixes etched into the sky above Fox's Century City lot late yesterday (see included photo, sent in by a reader who just knocked a millennium off his purgatory sentence) by the studio's infernal biplanes was merely the first stage of their airborne marketing blitz. Another operative informs us that Fox's airborne, fork-tailed terror squad continued down to Anaheim, briefly turning the Magic Kingdom into the Most Satanic Place on Earth:

As a service to our readers on the Sony lot who might not be checking their inboxes as frequently as they should, we pass along this interoffice e-mail blast reassuring employees that their place of work has not, in fact, burned to the ground.

A nicotine-addled Defamer operative just submitted this report about Fox's latest skywriting-based attempt at movie marketing:

· Paramount is putting together a deal with Mike Myers to co-write and star in comedy about a "new age guru" character named Pitka, crossing its fingers that Myers won't eventually suffer another ugly Dieter-style freakout that ends in a bunch of lawsuits. [Variety]
· Columbia Pictures buys the top-secret "fraternal twins" script Jack and Jill for Adam Sandler's Happy Madison to produce and as a potential starring vehicle for Sandler. [THR]
· MGM already seems tired of its relationship with Sony, acting out against its loss of independence by snatching back its home video rights and messing around with Fox for DVD distribution. Next week, MGM plans on having Sony walk in while it screws the pool boy, just to make sure it gets the message. [Variety]
· Viewers in the key demographic prefer NBC's Last Comic Standing premiere to the reruns offered by other networks. Break out the champagne, NBC! A win is a win. [THR]
· Russell Crowe leaves Baz Luhrmann's Australian period epic over "disagreements" with 20th Century Fox, which we are contractually obligated to mention did not include physical violence. We think. [Variety]

· Variety leads with the story, "Will 'Code' erode?," which asks how X-Men: The Last Stand will fare at the box office this weekend opposite the still strong Da Vinci Code. Leading us to wonder out loud, "Does the mere posing of a question really qualify as a news story?" Or, for that matter, a lame trade round-up joke? [Variety]
· NBC's program-grid shell game has their competitors snickering behind their scrawny, fourth place ass. But it could well be they who laughs last, when Super Deal or No Deal, featuring a stadium of 1000 models holding briefcases containing amounts from $.01 to $1,000,000,000, devours the Thursday 6 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. time slot. [Variety]
· Canadian networks divvy up this year's American TV offerings, then frantically futz with their schedules in an adorable attempt at mimicking the habits of their neighbor to the south. [Variety]
· Morgan Freeman is close to signing on to Gone, Baby, Gone, Ben Affleck's directorial debut from a script he wrote, answering the age old question, "How many motorcycles does it take to get Morgan Freeman to star in your big comeback vehicle?" [THR]
· Les Moonves tells shareholders that CBS has gotten off to "a terrific start" since its divorce from Viacom, a less than subtle dig at rival Tom Freston. And somewhere in Heaven, the legend goes, the Angel of Corporate Honcho Harmony yelps in pain as a clump of wing feathers is instantly torn off. [THR]

· The American Idol finale numbers are in and predictably huge, as 36 million people tuned in to watch Taylor Hicks embark on a career of overwrought, Idol-supplied ballads and Joe Cocker covers. As the Reporter notes, that total is "nine times the population of Hicks' native state of Alabama," where Hicks will be named emperor-for-life in a ceremony later today. [THR]
· People suddenly start caring about the NBA Playoffs this season, spurring a ratings surge helping justify ABC, TNT, and ESPN's massive investment in televising pro basketball games. [Variety]
· Hustle & Flow director will stay with Paramount to make Maggie Lynn, the country music-centered third installment of his "music that people in Tennessee seem to like" trilogy. [Variety]
· Studios and networks are suing Cablevision for offering its "RS-DVR" on-demand service, which allows customers too forgetful to set their own DVRs to watch programming the cable provider has pre-recorded for them, on the grounds that the nets and studios need more time to launch their own services aimed at further bleeding the lazy. [THR]
· Sofia Coppola's dad rides on the coattails of his famous filmmaker daughter, decides to give the directing thing a whirl. [Variety]

In today's The NY Times, Sharon Waxman looks at why Fox and Sony "pulled the plug" on Used Guys, the long-gestating comedy starring Jim Carrey, Ben Stiller, and directed by Meet the Parents/Austin Powers'Jay Roach, a seemingly sure-thing project featuring all the rubber-faced and/or hyperbolically neurotic comedy antics the moviegoing public craves, and which was ready to roll into production about a month from now. The short answer, "How can our poor little studios hope to make any money when the budget is $112 million and the greedy, extortionist talent is sucking up all the back-end profit?" seems deeply unsatisfying to Roach, whose entire worldview was thrown into turmoil and meaninglessness by the abrupt plug-pulling. Reports the Times:

· Coming into tonight's close of the 2005-06 TV season, Fox (adults 18-49), ABC (just behind Fox in the key demo, but has "the most water-cooler shows") and CBS (total viewers) all have claims to having the most success. NBC, however, doesn't have to share its proud strangehold on fourth place with anyone. [Variety]
· Adorable off-screen couple Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams are still picking their projects together, as they both join the cast of the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There. [THR]
· The French are still working through their feelings for Sofia Coppola, offering up a mix of "Gallic-accented boos" (le boo?) and applause at the Cannes press screening of Marie Antoinette. [Variety]
· Queen Latifah tries to atone for Taxi by taking on a tour de force role as a formerly crack-addicted AIDS activist in the HBO film Life Support. [THR]
· Fox humiliates the competition behind the first night of the American Idol finale, which drew over 125 million viewers and may top six billion for tonight's pop star coronation. [Variety]

Seeing a golden opportunity to expand her visibility from the confining Nielsen restrictions of a basic cable comedy to the potential mass audience the America Idol final showdown could afford her, Tori Spelling was one of the first to answer the open Idol casting call seeking "upper middle class, Sherman Oaks types" who could adequately "feign genuine affection for Katharine McPhee." (An attempt to beef up the contestant's rather anemic show of local support on hometown visit week.) Producers, impressed with Spelling's lengthy resume, cast her immediately in the role of "Katharine's best friend Staycie," but still felt the need to bolster the scene with a veteran background actor in the role of "Aunt Jan."