♦ ABC has ordered up new episodes of Life on Mars, but it has no plans to shoot new ones of Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, or Eli Stone. [THR]
♦ Penguin's Ann Godoff will be publishing pollster Nate Silver's two books as part of the deal he signed for $700,000. [NYO]
♦ Michael Phelps has signed on as a pitchman for Subway. [AdAge]
♦ Ted Turner's autobiography will make its debut on the New York Times bestseller list this week at No. 8. Also: Artie Lang, Howard Stern's sidekick, has landed a six-figure book deal. [NYP]

So the, uh, long-awaited interview with Eliot Spitzer's call girl has finally arrived! If this had come out six months ago, you all would have been hanging on her every word; now it's more of a novelty, like meeting Tonya Harding. But there are highlights, and we've collected them in this handy clip! Click to see some ill-advised hooker empathy, the real difference between an "escort" and a "prostitute," and lots of Diane Sawyer's famous "Bitch, what?" face.

Breaking news, as THR is reporting that ABC "has decided against picking up" struggling series—in decreasing order of belovedness—Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, and Eli Stone. By not actually saying the word "canceled," the network leaves the door open to ordering future episodes, but THR puts the odds of that at "improbable." UPDATE: Scrubs lives.Still—you never know! Brooke Shields has chosen to go the full denial route with Lipstick Librarians, and it's been working out for her! (The studio custodians and security have been great about keeping up the charade that the show is still in production when she arrives on the lot every morning.) UPDATE: The network did pick up Scrubs, set to premiere in a one-hour episode on Jan. 6. WTF? They pluck Daisies but re-animate Scrubs? Why can't that show die? It's so irritating. And we're told that yes, Zach Braff comes with the package, for one final swansong season. [THR]

DaisyPushingWatch. ABC's Wednesday night lineup reached series lows. The close-to-flatlining Pushing Daisies was down 27% since its last airing opposite The Barack Obama Show, and Private Practice and Dirty Sexy Money didn't fare much better, down 15% each. On a more positive note, Gary Unmarried is up 29%! [THR]

Is everybody ready for some sweet prostitute interviewing? A tipster tells us "100% reliably" that Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the famous Eliot Spitzer hooker, sat down for her first-ever prime time interview yesterday. Our source says that Diane Sawyer filmed the interview for ABC at a midtown studio, in secret, and that the network is planning to air it next Friday. The network hasn't announced it yet, so you heard it here first, assuming it happens. The other, less solid part of this rumor involves how Ashley got paid for her time: Our tipster is somewhat less sure of this part, but has also heard:

You really have to sympathize with The View's braintrust, whose knowledge of topics like arts and science, current events, and the general shape of the planet is mostly limited to whatever producers can fit on a 5x8 cue card. Watching them try to argue the fundamental issues behind the Prop 8 firestorm is about as productive as watching four black-crested macaques change a spare tire—you know they'll get there eventually, but you're looking at many grueling hours of mutual nit-picking before they do.So when the group's impotent disciplinarian Barbara Walters returned from a recent interview with the World Famous Pregnant Man™ bearing the earth-shattering scoop that HE IS PREGNANT AGAIN, one can only imagine how quickly things devolved. The bombshell sucked the show into a Bermuda Triangle vortex of shock and confusion, tethered at each corner by the hosts' tenuous yet deeply passionate takes on hot topics like marriage, gender, and multiple-abortion-having. Words like "floored," "What the Hell Wednesday," and "woooowwwww" are soon lobbed about, until Elisabeth Hasselbeck—go figure!—is the one to finally rein in her wits, boring straight to the crux of this 21st century metaphysical mystery by observing: "Having another baby 10 months from now? That is hard work. 15 months apart? That's the hardest thing yet!" So true, so very true. [The View]

Grey's Anatomy finally entered the final phase of its gaywashing yesterday, disposing of Brooke Smith's Dr. Hahn in a scene as muddled and incoherent as Smith's actual firing.Hahn and her on-screen love interest, Sara Ramirez's Callie, had only one scene where they discussed their same-sex leanings, and it came near the end of the show. The exchange started in classic Grey's "This hospital issue is really about our relationship!"-speak before devolving into...well, we don't know exactly. It appears that Hahn gets mad at the somewhat reluctant Callie and says, "You can't kind of be a lesbian," which is awfully tough talk for a character who just realized she was a lesbian in the last episode. "I don't know you at all," Hahn continues, before storming off into the parking lot (where she is presumably flown back to her home planet on a rocket ship booby-trapped by worried ABC executives).

The Village Voice has gotten a good look at Disney's new straight-to-DVD Tinker Bell (now in 3-D with speaking capabilities!), and declares the 2008 version of the spritely heroine—the original of whom is wrongly rumored to be modeled on Marilyn Monroe—to be a platitudinous pixie snore. They also find her extremely "sexy/creepy...a chubby-cheeked, slightly infantilized adolescent with the body of a grown woman. She sports the skimpiest dress in the movie."Tinker Bell isn't traditionally the first Disney starlet one's mind wanders to when hoping to be aroused by hand-drawn family entertainment. She's not Ariel, glistening with salt water in a revealing oysterkini top. She's not the gorgeous Esmeralda—the Demi Moore-voiced Hunchback of Notre Dame gypsy enchantress who seduced the deformed gonger with one bat of her emerald eyes. She's not Pocahontas, Mulan, Jasmine, or Belle, either. What is she, anyway? Is she a child? A grown woman? Would she fly up your pants in a darkened theater? And—perhaps most of all—what is it that makes her first-ever broadcast interview with GMA's Chris Cuomo so deeply unsettling? Probably their sexy/creepy chemistry. Jeez, get a room or take it behind the Wishing Tree, will you guys, already?

♦ ABC appears to generated the highest ratings as the election results rolled in last night. NBC came in second and CNN ranked third. [TV Decoder]
♦ Time is rushing to produce a commemorative issue of the mag by the end of the week. [HuffPo]
♦ Both People and Us Weekly will feature Obama on the covers of the next issue. [NYP]
♦ Can The Daily Show survive an Obama presidency? and how will other media outlets deal with the post-election dropoff? [Politico, AdAge]
♦ An explanation of that holography thingie on CNN last night. [YouTube]

Hope For The Hill? The recently canceled King of the Hill may yet live on, as a Fox rep has confirmed that "another network is interested" in the long-running and consistently solid (but terminally unbuzzworthy) series. The show is still averaging at about a 3.4 rating—the same numbers CBS's "breakout hit" The Mentalist is getting—and reached as high as a 4.3 after last Sunday's Simpsons Halloween special. Fun fact: Did you know Bobby is voiced by Pamela Adlon, aka Mrs. Louie from short-lived Louis C.K. sitcom Lucky Louie? [THR]

We noted yesterday yet another shitstorm brewing behind (and in front of) the scenes of ABC's Grey's Anatomy, as a still shell-shocked Brooke Smith told EW.com about her character's abrupt dismissal from the series. She plays Dr. Erica Hahn—who, it's worth noting, replaced Isiah Washington's ejected character as head of cardiothorasic surgery—and who had recently embarked upon a McLesbiany relationship with Callie, played by Sara Ramirez. It began with a sweet kiss, but soon after the writers took it further, with dialogue about exploring "undiscovered country," and at least one postcoital monologue on the joys of ladyfruit harvesting (above). The relationship—what AfterEllen points out is the only depiction of a lesbian couple currently on primetime TV—was developing rapidly. Now Smith has been informed, in the vaguest terms, that her character won't be returning to Seattle Grace after this week's episode. She explains:

You've now had several hours to absorb the news that Deanna Pappas and Jesse Csincsak will not spend the rest of eternity together in a state of cross-eyed lovers' bliss—the very thing they pledged to us, the passively interested Bachelorette viewer, during that live broadcast of After the Final Rose. Pappas said in a statement that she "slowly came to realize that we are two totally different people and it wasn't going to work out," but what was Jesse's side of the story?He tells Extra via webcam declaration that Pappas "told some of our business associates" of the breakup before telling him. "She came back to Colorado [after some time away] and told me, ‘I love you, but I’m not in love with you.’…I picked her up from the airport and she told me while I was getting her bags." If there was ever any question whether or not real feelings were involved, wait until you see a tearful and confused Csincsak apologizing to his thwarter "for whatever I did to make you not want to be with me.” Honestly, Jesse? Screw her. You can do way better—and will! On The Bachelor's Revenge: The Revenge-Seeking Bachelorette's Bachelor Bites Back!. Then you'll have your own six-week stab at rooting through a pile of ring-hungry hotties until you find the perfect one. (Of course, you'll have to wait your turn until that other dude she sent packing gets his.)

We'd only just begun to recover from the news that Lamas Family Acting Dynasty scion Shayne Lamas had ended her arranged marriage to British Bachelor guy—a decision followed by a downward spiral of public bum-flashings and belt-chewing for the young, single actress. Now comes news that yet another of the series's pairings—that of onetime gazebo rejectee turned manhungry shopping-spree winner DeAnna Pappas to snowboard instructor Jesse Csincsak—has come undone:

Digging around our Otherwordly TV Programming inbox this afternoon, we found just the bit of ephemera we'd been praying for: a spot teasing ABC's Unleached, featuring our experimental dance/comedy idol Cloris Leachman's finest outtakes from her abortive journey on Dancing With the Stars. It's all here — the sassy interviews, the heroic training regimens, her heaving bosom, and pretty much everything else preceding her pyrrhic-victory lap on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Alas, when contacted for additional information, an ABC could confirm only that we'd been duped by creative gag-reel editors from the inside. Cruel, and cruelly unfair at that; we'd watch three seasons of Unleached before watching another hour of CBS's entire fall line-up. Are we wrong? [YouTube]

♦ Teen Vogue is opening a retail outlet at the mall in Short Hills, New Jersey. It'll be called "Teen Vogue Haute Spot" and, no, this is not a joke. [NYT]
♦ More than 20 percent of American households watched Barack Obama's infomercial on Wednesday night. [NYT]
♦ Joe the Plumber is pursuing a country music deal and could have an album out by Inauguration Day, although we're going to assume this won't be Barack's musical choice for the big day. [Politico]

Amber waves of grain, arthritis ointment application, an emotionally distant Sarah Silverman the morning after—The Barack Obama Show really offered something for everyone. And by "everyone" we'd include network heads, as preliminary Nielsen numbers show the 30-minute hope-infusion juiced ratings across the board. Even ABC's struggling Pushing Daisies benefited from a small counter-programming bump, though still only managed to squeak out a meager 2.2. From THR:

ABC will remain the lone holdout in the Obama campaign's plans to hijack all of network TV this Wednesday, perhaps solidifying our "Watch TiVo Kill" authors' easiest day yet. To wit — 8 p.m on ABC: Pushing Daisies. 8 p.m. everywhere else: It's the Great Pumpkin, Barack Obama, or whatever the presidential front-runner has up his tailored sleeve less than a week until Election Day. Guess along with us after the jump.Obama picked up a half-hour of prime-time air from CBS, NBC and Fox on Oct. 9 for $1 million apiece. The Live Feed reports that ABC offered its own 8 o'clock block around the same time, only to be rebuffed by the campaign for unknown reasons. Meanwhile, the participating networks have yet to learn what the candidate has in mind for his special — whether he might stick with Ross Perot's tried-and-true "Pie-Chart Filibuster" model from the 1992 campaign, or something a little more contemporary, like a modified version of Jeopardy! where every uplifting clue yields the queries "Who is Barack Obama?" and, we guess, for those three Daily Doubles on the board, "Who is Joe Biden?" We'd hate to see anyone left out.

We figured the growing on-air hostility between Republican whistle-siren Elisabeth Hasselbeck and the more moderate panelists on The View would eventually erupt into something appropriately spectacular—and it did, with multiple accounts sent to us of a Joy Behar/Elisabeth Hasselbeck backstage Catfight of the Century. Word of the smackdown, full of detonated F-bombs and wishes of co-host conflagration, quickly made the media rounds, such as the clip above from last night's ExtraIn it, quadruple threat host Mario Lopez—he acts, dances, crunches, and reads showbiz news copy!—capably sums up not just our report, but The View's ensuing damage control campaign. Not only did Whoopi hit the Regis high-chair, but she also reassured GMA's Diane Sawyer that no one's life is in immediate danger—in fact, they all love each other! Yes, yes, we're sure that's all true, ladies, but can we suggest bringing back that effective split-screen technique that hastened Rosie O'Donnell's departure? You're really losing half the fun if the camera misses Joy silently mouthing, "IwillburnyoudownIwillburnyoudown" while Elisabeth defends her theories that a 19-year-old Barack Obama was the one who gave John Hinckley, Jr. his Reagan-shooting marching orders. [Extra] Previously:

Lindsay Lohan has been busily reforging the career she whittled away during her extended stint as the Norte del Valle cartel's number one point-starlet—a plan which began, somewhat inauspiciously, with a six-episode arc on Ugly Betty, playing the title character's childhood menace. Now come reports that Lohan's set antics and an ongoing feud with Ugly star America Ferrera have reduced that number to four, and resulted in at least one unplanned flash of ginger from which the crew has yet to recover. Page Six reports:

Because Friday is traditionally our day for fun times and 1/2 price, 11 a.m. margaritas, we bring you now this gallery of completely inspired "Truthful TV Title Cards," masterfully created by Glark blog. (Seriously! Check out that workmanship on Summer's Assholes 10.) And while we would have loved a version of How I Met Your Mother called Four Forgettable Characters Plus Neil Patrick Harris and a Shameless Laugh Track, beggars can't be choosers, ya know?