· NBC still hasn't recovered from the pain of Joey and Four Kings, plays it safe on the comedy front by only picking up two new sitcoms for its fall schedule, the aforementioned 30 Rock and the John Lithgow/Jeffrey Tambor old-guys-who-fight-death-with-laughter vehicle 20 Years, both grouped in a new Wednesday night block. [Variety]
· ABC gives series orders to six more projects. Dramas: Brothers and Sisters, Ugly Betty, Traveler, and Anne Heche/Northern Exposure mash-up Men in Trees. On the comedy side: Big Day and the untitled Burnett/Beckerman heist comedy in which Grounded for Life's Donal Logue and his pals try to rob Mick Jagger. [THR]
· Americans might find him creepy and off-putting, but foreigners can't get enough of Tom Cruise as M:i:III wins the foreign box office for the second straight week with $40.5 million. [Variety]
· The CW can't bring itself to damn 7th Heaven to the TV afterlife, resurrecting the seemingly dead 7th Heaven for their inaugural season. [THR]
· CBS orders four new dramas and two comedies, and also picks up 13 episodes of fat, clueless husband/hot, skinny wife staple King of Queens and second seasons for The New Adventures of Old Christine and Close to Home. [Variety]

Shortly, NBC will be the first network to announce its fall schedule at this week's "upfront" presentations to advertisers in NY, when it is widely expected that the network will formally anoint Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing and the new, highly buzzed-about drama Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip Live From A Soundstage In Los Angeles, California, as the Peacock Messiah. But don't think that the folks at NBC didn't perform their due diligence (Executive: "So, Aaron, um...yeah...how are, you know, things?" Sorkin: "I'm not making my own crack anymore." Exec: "Welcome to the NBC family.") before putting their fate in the hands of the famously troubled showrunner. Reports the WSJ:

· The whole world, including places that aren't versed enough in the tenets of Christianity to know why Catholics don't like the idea of Jesus and Mary Magdalene hooking up, seems really, really excited for The Da Vinci Code. [Variety]
· After closing a deal to sell his clothing company $1.6 billion, Tommy Hilfiger is so rich that he's willing to fart away $20 million on a movie about the fashion industry. We predict that he's going to be the most popular guy in Hollywood by next Wednesday. [THR]
· Credit Var for not falling into the "sinking" trap and instead going scatological with their "Will the ship hit the fans?" Poseidon headline. [Variety]
· CBS wins all three hours (both overall and in the key demographic) of primetime Thursday TV against "super-sized" NBC episodes, even though (spoiler alert) Jim totally told Pam he was in love with her at the end of Casino Night and we like cried for a half hour straight. [THR]
· NBC officially picks up Friday Night Lights, Heroes, Raines, 20 Good Years and The Singles Table. They still haven't given the official go-ahead to the Tina Fey comedy—the network seems to be working things out with Alec Baldwin so that they can premiere the show in the fall and fulfill their dream of having a solid 90-minute block of all SNL-inspired programming. [Variety]

· ABC orders up six shows in advance of next week's network upfronts, the dramas The Nine, JJ Abrams' Six Degrees, and Daybreak, as well as comedies In Case of Emergency, "TV warhorse" Ted Danson's Help Me Help You, and Notes from the Underbelly. [Variety]
· Meanwhile, NBC is expected to pick up Friday Night Lights, Raines, Heroes and The Untitled Tina Fey Comedy (code name: Fuck Sorkin, There's Room For Two SNL Shows) today. [THR]
· The Da Vinci Code's global "day-and-date" release next weekend will be a crucial test for Hollywood's new strategy of unleashing its product simultaneously on international populations softened up by a coordinated media carpetbombing. We predict total box office victory, especially in places that want to piss off Catholics. [Variety]
· Viacom posts a 9% drop in first quarter profits, a loss they tragically can't blame on Paramount, Tom Cruise, and M:i:III. [THR]
· Showtime is developing an hour-long biographical drama series on Billy Joel's life, Big Shot, but its producer insists that the show "...isn't a love letter to Billy. He actually is pretty insistent that we tell the whole story." Look for the series to demonstrate that commitment to the unvarnished truth by employing a framing device in which each episode begins in a bar ands ends with a different drunken car wreck on a Long Island road. [Variety]

Pondering Tom Cruise's current standing with the American moviegoer makes us sad and tired. But do you know what makes us very, very happy? That's right: a gigantic image of Les Moonves in an innertube (which copyranter so generously scanned for us from a recent issue of Broadcasting & Cable) which remind us that a fresh round of colorful, Jeff Zucker-pummeling Moonves quotes from next week's network upfronts is just around the proverbial corner. Maybe this time the CBS folks will give us the punch line to that "a priest, a rabbi and Jeff Zucker go into a bar" joke and finally end a year of crippling suspense.

OK, the sound quality sucks. And, yeah, it's from yesterday morning. And, granted, it's a "news" segment that little more than a marketing pitch for both a time when you actually watched NBC's scripted shows and a new DVD in which the network presumably has a stake. But, even so, you gotta watch Al Roker singing the Facts of Life theme on the Today show. Watch it once and it's amusing. Then watch it again, playing close attention to the last little bit of the song. You won't be able to look away.

The Malcontent has video of the cast of Will & Grace's appearance on today's Oprah, talking about what it's like to end a long-running, hit series. Debra Messing offered that "it felt like I lost my last name," which must have been extremely difficult for the actress, having already survived losing a single "o" much earlier in her career. Oprah starts a question for the very-obviously-gay-to- everyone-except-himself Eric McCormack with, "Now, Eric, you're not gay..." which elicits whoops of "You're not?!" from his female co-stars. The married actor then rebutts with this anecdote: "I'm banging on [Debra's] door at the Four Seasons last night screaming 'I'm not gay!' Please!" Well, that settles that! Sean Hayes remains suspiciously mum throughout the exchange, though he opens up once the subject turns to shit:

· In a move that surprised absolutely no one, NBC picked up Aaron Sorkin's behind-the-scenes-at-SNL pilot Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. leaving the network to decide whether or not there's also room on its schedule for Tina Fey's still untitled behind-the-scenes-at-SNL pilot. [Variety]
· Columbia buys an Ashton Kutcher pitch for a "modern-day Shampoo," but with florists instead of hairdressers, Kutcher instead of Warren Beatty, and brain-dead teenagers instead of the movie's original target audience. [THR]
· CBS helpfully subtracts themselves from our summer viewing plans by unveiling a line-up of "docusoap" Tuesday Night Book Club, Ricki Lake's Game Show Marathon, and the return of Big Brother and Rock Star. [Variety]
· CBS unveils its broadband channel, Innertube, with slate of "original, low-cost" (read: very low cost) shows. We expect one of the channel's initial offerings, Webcam Pointing at Les Moonves' Parked Car So That Fucking Valet Won't Scratch It Again, to be its first breakout hit. [THR]
· Oxygen's announcement of the "largest development slate in its history" leads us to believe that the network still exists. Further research is necessary. Developing... [Variety]

· The success of NBC's Deal or No Deal has erased every network's institutional memory of the primetime gameshow flops following the Who Wants to be a Millionaire? craze, as the nets scramble to once again get their copycat offerings on the air. Especially promising is Fox's obligatory knockoff, Yelling At Sequentially Numbered Duffel Bags Full Of Cash. To be hosted, of course, by a soul-patched Chuck Woolery. [Variety]
· Jack Black joins director Michael Gondry for the suitably surreal comedy Be Kind Rewind, about a man who must remake all the movies in his friend's video store after his magnetized brain destroys them all. [THR]
· Richard Gere and Terrence Howard are in talks to star in Spring Break in Bosnia, the (apparently seriocomic) tale of some journalists who are mistaken for a CIA hit squad in Bosnia. [Variety]
· ABC picks up a third full season of Boston Legal, a development that may temporarily slow William Shatner's enthusiasm for bizarre side business as he worries a little less about not having a steady paycheck. [THR]
· Fox plans to sell downloads of individual American Idol performances in both video and audio formats, allowing the modern entertainment consumer to never be far from his favorite Chris Daughtry cover of a Creed song. [Variety]

· Various people whom former mananger and current Paramount chief Brad Grey has helped make incredibly rich (Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, HBO), claim that Vanity Fair's big story on the Anthony Pellicano investigation is full of inaccuracies and fabrications. And Grey's Paramount flack isn't happy (shocker!) either: "Specific allegations and statements made by unnamed sources about Brad Grey in Vanity Fair's piece on Anthony Pellicano are total fabrications." [Variety]
· THR finds the most unflattering picture possible to illustrate their story on Jon Favreau's hiring by Marvel Studio to develop and direct an adaptation of Iron Man. Seriously, that pic is just plain mean. [THR]
· Lindsay Lohan signs up for her next opportunity to be accused of sleeping with a smarmy older guy, joining Adrien Brody in the cast of the romantic comedy Speechless. Go ahead and try and say "Brohan" to yourself without inducing a seizure, we dare you. [Variety]
· Fox makes pre-upfronts pick-ups of comedy 'Til Death and drama Vanished, while NBC renews its committment to being Dick Wolf's bitch by bringing back all three Law & Order series. [THR]
· The buzz-killing plagiarism scandal over the novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life has DreamWorks slowly backing away from the suddenly radioactive material it had planned to adapt. [Variety]

Sometimes "Online Only" denotes bonus materials specially developed for the internet, a now-vital distribution platform for the networks. Other times, as in the case of the almost simultaneously premiered and canceled Celebrity Cooking Showdown, it means "we spent million of dollars on this shit, but it's still not good enough for us to waste Bravo airtime we're using for Blow Out reruns, and we gotta dump it somewhere."

Earlier in the week we introduced you to the Deal or No Deal Banker's Blog, in which the famously silent silhouette shares his world view with the adoring masses. In his latest post, it appears just a few months spent living in the shadows of Howie Mandel's large, bald head has quickly taken its toll on the Alan Greenspan of the game show set:

The phrase "self-published book" is usually poorly concealed code for "stuff I made up to pay the rent this month" (the celebrity-ass-fucking oeuvre of a certain author comes to mind), but we're more optimistic about the upcoming opus from West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin's former call girl, which details the celebrated showrunner's crack-propelled, for-pay erotic adventures. Sorkin admitted to Page Six in January that "I knew Dimitra for a short time a long time ago," and the Sixies finally unload on him today:

Something in Deal Or No Deal's recipe of big dollar amounts and smoking-hot, mute models arranged in pyramid formation has connected with America, as it has been racking up decent ratings and multiplying all over the NBC schedule faster than you can say "Who Wants To Be An Oversaturated Game Show?" Part of its success can be attributed to the air of mystery surrounding the proceedings: Just who are these suitcase-wielding sexpots setting back the women's movement five decades? And who is this "Banker," besides a shadowy outline who keeps drunk-dialing every five minutes with a monetary—and who knows what else—offer for Howie Mandel? The show's website offers answers. The models have their own page, although under the heading of less is more, we can't say we recommend it. ("My name is Janelle Lafreniere. Along with modeling, I teach dance and work part time at a local gym.") Even more amazingly, the Banker finally speaks, in the guise of the sparsely updated Banker's Blog:

After the Earth-shattering buzz following Britney Spears' recent guest appearance on Will & Grace (read: a half-dozen West Hollywood viewing parties shriek-laughing between sips of White Trash Russians), there are rumors that the singer-actress is looking to swap the order of her hybrid multi-talents, putting acting first:

Today's NY Times looks at Tina Fey's still-untitled, behind-the-scenes-at-a-variety-show NBC sitcom pilot, which may wind up making the schedule despite the presence of Aaron Sorkin's behind-the-scenes-at-a-variety-show dramedy pilot, a potential logjam that NBC president Kevin Reilly categorizes as a "high-class problem":

We're sitting here, watching the View and listening to Meredith Vieira talk about Katie Couric's move to CBS, when our ears perk up at the sound of Barbara Walters abruptly switching to her soft-and-sensitive voice: "And after the break, some news of our own."

Just 25 hours since Today Show host Katie Couric announced her departure for the CBS evening news anchor chair, and producers are already pulling out the subtle stops. In the touristy crowd outside of Rockefeller Center, a handmade sign has been placed in the hands of an unsuspecting child. It reads, "Katie! I will miss you when you go to CBS! Good Luck!"

• Yesterday's American Media bloodletting will cut the mag publisher's workforce by 9 percent. [WWD]
• And will save the company about $10 million. [NYP]
• With Katie Couric heading to CBS, NBC is days away from a deal to bring Meredith Vieira to fill her clickety stiletto heels. [NYT]
• Gabe Sherman agrees: Times Discovery Channel might be on its way out. Plus Hearst in the new tower, Lapham at Michael's, and Raines at Harvard. [NYO]
• The New York Times has finally done something to make Jack Shafer happy. So now he'll cancel his subscription. [Slate]
• The Week names Nick Kristof Columnist of the Year. We imagine Andrea Peyser is devastated. [E&P]

· Crown/Harmony Books buys former MPAA head Jack Valenti's memoir, which the superannuated lobbyist promises is not a "get-even book." However, he promises that Jack Valenti: My Life Dueling The Rapethirsty Pirates Bent On Repeatedly Violating The Entertainment Industry's Virginal Maids With Their Digital Instruments Of Unparalleled Evil will contain "a lot of interesting stories about some famous people." [Variety]
· PilotWatch, Dead Guys Resurrected Edition: Recently nerve-gassed 24 player Sean Astin is in negotiations to star in ABC's comedy The Guys, while Roger Bart, the creepy, gay-seeming Desperate Housewives pharmacist recently suicided off Wisteria Lane, joins CBS' comedy My Ex-Life.[THR]
· Precocious SNL star Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island partners quickly cash in on their "Lazy Sunday" buzz, signing up to star in and direct Hot Rod, "about an accident-prone daredevil who plans to jump Snake River on a moped in an effort to emulate his hero Evel Knievel and win over his hard-to-please stepfather." Sounds a little iffy, but luckily they've got to wait a little longer before they have access to Jimmy Fallon-level career-killing scripts like Taxi. [Variety]
·A twenty-nine second clip premiered before Ice Age: The Meltdown announces that fans of The Simpsons will have to wait until July 27, 2007 to see Homer delightfully sociopathic tendencies on the big screen. [THR]
· The WB/UPN hybrid network abomination The CW jilts Los Angeles proper to set up its headquarters in Burbank, leaving Fox and CBS as the only major nets remaining on the right side of the hill. [Variety]