Seriously. Its best actor is leaving the show, so just be done with it. Also today: more Captain America news, two directors sign on to two dubious sounding projects, and ABC Family has the saddest TV pilots.

Today at Gawker.TV, Jessica Simpson discovers the true Price of Beauty, Johnny Weir's sexually-charged Pilates stretches, Law & Order uses Project Runway as its defense, NatGeo dresses hundreds of folks up to reenact the life of sperm.

An Apple Store staffer said she was choked by Richard Belzer. The Law & Order star, meanwhile, says he just touched the employee's shoulders to get her attention. Plus she's a crazy person who kept him waiting.

"The conservative online news entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart is, for the moment, doing little to dispel stereotypes about bloggers." Now why does that sentence end with the word "bloggers" and not "conservative assholes with persecution complexes"?

[Mischa Barton and Mariska Hargitay filming 'Law & Order: SVU'; image via INF]

Well, now that NBC has traveled a few months back in time and given Leno the "Tonight Show" back, they've wasted no time in filling his crucial 10 pm spot: Look forward to Jerry Seinfeld, "Law & Order," and "Parenthood."

You expected to hear Law & Order would be ripping the Jon and Kate Gosselin saga from the headlines to base an upcoming show on, didn't you? The episode airing on Oct. 16 revolves around a reality show called "Larry Plus 10" and "chronicles the struggles of a single dad who's raising 10 adopted special needs kids by himself—after his wife, Joy, is bludgeoned-to-death." But are budget cuts now taking a toll on the long-running series? The other main character is a woman who had 10 kids by in-vitro fertilization and is a stand-in for Nadya Suleman. [NYP]

We know that a casting call went out this summer for a Law & Order episode (loosely) based on the Curious Case of the Hipster Grifter. A tipster thinks it's tonight's show (the second promo clip). Hmmm. Maybe not.

A tipster tells us Law & Order has put out a confidential casting call for someone who sounds a lot like Kari Ferrell, our favorite Brooklyn scammer.

Mayor Bloomberg's new campaign commercial features him chatting up a bunch of cops next to a squad car. The problem? The uniforms and police car identify them as officers from the 27th Precinct, which doesn't exist in real life, but happens to be the fictional precinct depicted on Law & Order. Naturally, Bloomberg's primary challenger, Bill Thompson, is using the incident to score political points. Per a spokesman: "The make-believe police precinct in Bloomberg's ad fits perfectly with his five-borough plan and policies... All fantasies." Of course, Thompson is still clinging to the fantasy he actually has a shot at unseating Bloomberg, so it looks like everyone concerned is living in a fantasyland of some sort. [NYDN]

• How are things going at the Cannes Film Festival? It depends on who you talk to. The Journal says it's been "conspicuously less frenzied" and business has been "slow." The Hollywood Reporter says it's beating expectations and "doomsayers" have been "proven wrong." Take your pick. [WSJ, THR]
• NBC is dropping Medium and My Name Is Earl for the fall, but bringing back Chuck. It's also renewed Law & Order for a 20th season. [NYT, AP, NYT]
• What can you expect on ABC this fall? More Dancing With the Stars. [THR]
• CBS is ditching Without A Trace, but has renewed Numb3rs. [EW]
• Time Warner Cable is dropping HDNet and HDNet Movies as May 31. [MC]

The college student who, at 18, became the girlfriend of the creepy old head of the Emperors Club VIP, and eventually that escort service's manager? Six months in prison! Eliot Spitzer? A column at Slate.

When you're halfway into your forty-sixth season, as NBC's long-running crime drama Law & Order is, there are only so many storylines left to do that haven't been done before. Thus, it's no surprise that the show's "ripped from the headlines" method of generating plot points would eventually lead it to the death of Heath Ledger (you'll get your turn soon, Mario!), though it's impressive just how deeply they botched their opportunity. Says Page Six:

While enjoying a lunch with a lady friend in West Hollywood, soon to be Law & Order: Criminal Intent star Jeff Goldblum became mildly perturbed when a woman stepped in between him and an enterprising paparazzo. Goldblum thought if he was going to be filmed while enjoying a delicious meal, then there should at least be some high quality shots of his face. Goldblum added, "I mean, this guy went to great lengths to step up the shot. You know, getting everything perfectly in focus and then, this woman, I'm sure she's a lovely person, but she disrupts the picture. Maybe I'm cranky because I haven't had my muffin yet. Carbs will make things better."

The Linda Stein murder caper felt like a Law & Order episode all along. So it's no surprise the show is now appropriating the sensational real-life crime for a plotline. Joan Jett will star as the slain rock manager-turned-realty bigshot and Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth) will solve the homicide in an hour or less. [NY Post]

Law & Order concluded its season last night with a thinly-veiled interpretation of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal. The much-anticipated finale was probably a letdown to any viewer familiar with lurid details of the former governor's trysts (black socks!) or the many racy pictures of his call girl Ashley Dupre. There was way too much investigating and lawyering and way too little fornicating and covering up. Is sweeps already over? Anyway, there were still some worthwhile scenes, including the requisite sardonic one-liner that detective Lenny used to do (directed at a hooker, naturally) and a demonstration of how to destroy a governor-screwing, coke-snorting hooker on cross examination (servicey!). There was also an outraged Spitzer look-alike, a conniving governor's wife (not our Silda!) and the immortal line, "I have a friend in the blogosphere."

Poor R. Kelly. All the R & B singer did was maybe videotape himself having sex with a peeing on the face of a girl as young as 13 and now he faces 15 years in prison. Well, Mr. Kelly met his prospective jury this week and it did not go well. "Some of the potential jurors looked uncomfortable, and at least a few placed their hands over their eyes as the judge read some of the more graphic sections of the indictments, said Verna Sadock, a sketch artist who was in the room."

Remember that whole thing six years ago with R. Kelly where this happened? "The [Chicago] Sun-Times reported it had received a 27-minute video of Kelly having sex with various women, and most troubling, the paper said, one scene appeared to show Kelly having sex with an underage girl and urinating on her face." [MTV] But then nothing much happened and people still bought his CDs and went to his concerts and all? Well, his trial finally starts this week and things are looking downright shitty for the singer.

The story of former Page Six scribe Jared Paul Stern and creepy supermarket billionaire/attempted modelizer Ron Burkle is being ripped from the headlines of two years ago for an upcoming episode of Law & Order. Daily News gossiper Ben Widdicombe reports that The Daily Show's Mo Rocca will play Stern. In real life, Burkle (who secretly owns Radar magazine and is a constant embarrassment to his bestest bud Bill Clinton) never did back up his claim that Stern had extorted him for $100 grand in exchange for powder-puff coverage, ended up the subject of even more bad press, and is now a defendant in a defamation suit brought by Stern that may well add to his humiliations. On TV, Stern will be dispatched with extreme prejudice.

Well, it was bound to happen sometime, but frankly we're a little shocked how fast Dick Wolf is getting going on the Adrienne Shelley rip-off episode, as this casting notice currently circulating attests: