Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! We feel a little guilty about not having gotten you anything since that Law & Order card two years ago, so we made sure to get an early start this year combing the internets for just the right, costless gesture to show you how much you mean to us. Luckily, ABC's website had plenty of Valentine's options. Some of us gravitated to the sensual mystery of their Lost series, but for our money, nothing said romance like the horny doctors of Grey's Anatomy. Above, we've placed Seattle Grace's attending physicians side by side, in a McMindblowing battle for your affections. But for Grey's purists who like their cast Valentine's Day card collections complete, we've mocked one up featuring the second season's most conspicuously absent member. It's after the jump—and remember, everyone: We choo-choo-choose you!

Today's LAT picks the strike-weary brains of four TV showrunners who are returning to work after three weeks of agonizing about the fates of their series, storylines they were forced to abandon, and early-draft scripts they may soon need to rush into production, hoping to illustrate the back-to-work chaos facing a town scrambling to pick up where it left off in early November. My Name is Earl's Greg Garcia, for example, is publicly promising that anyone who fritters away their precious time with unproductive chatter about which agency's picket line snacks were the most delicious (the debate, of course, begins and ends with CAA's baby-filled scones) risks an immediate shitcanning. ("[T]hat's all I've heard about for the last three months. And now it's over. I'm not going to sit and listen to them talk about it now. If you say the word 'strike' and you're not talking about bowling, you're fired.") Meanwhile, Lost's Damon Lindelof frets that his staff's been laid off for so long that they may have lost their already seemingly tenuous grasp on what the hell is going on with their magical, polar-bear-and-smoke-monster-infested island:

Moving decisively into the Post-Strike Era that began with today's Return of The Showrunners Parade on Hollywood Blvd., ABC has already picked up nine—nine!—of its series for next season, giving Desperate Housewives, Lost, Grey's Anatomy, Brothers & Sisters and Ugly Betty full orders, while giving 13 episode each to newer shows Private Practice, Pushing Daisies, Samantha Who? and Dirty Sexy Money. Curiously absent from this list: Cavemen, an indication that the network's groundbreaking sitcomfercial experiment may have finally come to an end. [THR]

Harris Poll asked TV viewers, both Democrat and Republican, to name their favorite and least liked news personalities. The results of the survey, crunched and displayed on our chart, are fascinating.

In a Suspicious Celebrity Growth Exclusive, Grey's Anatomy star Eric Dane shares with OK! magazine the harrowing experience of having learned that a melanoma had developed on his lip. Noticing a patch of what he thought was just chapped skin on his mouth, the actor credits the writers strike with allowing him the time to call a doctor and have check it checked out. (Yay, writers strike!) Little could he have known then of the topical ointment horrors to follow:

The FCC's brand of puritanical justice may not be swift, but it is severe: this afternoon, the Guardians of Primetime Morality suggested $1.4 million in fines for ABC's transgressions against federal anti-sideboob statutes committed in a 2003 (!) episode of NYPD Blue that "dwelled" upon a "small portion of one side of [an actress's] breasts" in "shocking and titillating" fashion. (Also, an unacceptable display of partially revealed buttocks were mentioned.) ABC has already responded: "When the brief scene in question was telecast almost five years ago, this critically acclaimed drama had been on the air for a decade and the realistic nature of its story lines was well known to the viewing public," a nod to the series' envelope-pushing early days, when weekly scenes of a seminude Dennis Franz helped cement its hit status. [B&C]

· The DGA, as you undoubtedly heard just moments after puffs of white smoke were belched skyward from the chimney of AMPTP headquarters, reached a deal with the studios yesterday. While anxious WGA members are picking over the proposed contract to see if any writer-screwing provisions have been hidden in the fine print, a strike-weary industry reacts: "One thing that is very clear is that with all the bad blood between the WGA and studios, the writers can strike until the end of time and they will not do better than the directors did. It is time to stop this," said a "veteran agent" obviously eager to start earning commissions again. Check out the full story to read quotes carefully chosen to make the WGA look totally unreasonable if they don't fall hopelessly in love with the terms offered the directors! [Variety]
[After the jump: more deal reactions! Zac Efron hearts Orson Welles! Primetime TV may soon offer nothing but celebrity circus shows!]

We can think of no better way to cap off this splendiferous Monday than with a ribald discussion among the ladies of The View on a topic the French might call a ménage à trois, but Americans more commonly refer to as a delicious McThreeWay. Things quickly get ugly, as family values traditionalist Elisabeth Hasselbeck declares a threesome witchhunt, fingering audience members she suspects of concealing group-sex-tainted pasts.

The WGA's displeasure with The Tonight Show host Jay Leno's self-penned monologues only continues to grow—while Conan O'Brien seems to get a pass, exempt under the "Actually Funny" clause—to the point where NBC has felt the need to issue a statement on the matter. Meanwhile, with SAG boycotting decrees making it increasing difficult to get even B-list asses on non-Worldwide Pants couches, the comedian has found an unlikely ally in another late night rival:

Playwright and Brothers & Sisters EP Jon Robin Baitz has spilled out his feelings about being "ousted, not fired, an important distinction," from the series he created, though he fails to mention what that distinction is. (We think one ends with the extension of a middle finger and the sound of a door slamming, and the other precedes those with a farewell dinner at Chaya.) Baitz covers a lot of ground in his 5000-word meditation (and that's just part two!) on what it means to leave Hollywood for New York's always-welcoming, rodent-infested embrace, recalling behind-the-scenes power struggles—no McChokeyGates, thank heavens, but Rob Lowe did tend to get pissy if you failed to tell him how nice he looks at the table reads—to his online dating adventures in the "world capital of loneliness." (Baitz obviously a man who never wintered in Bydgoszcz, Poland.) And as for its treatment of the gracefully aging, well—for shame, L.A., for shame:

Is the entertaining feud between delightfully unedited NBC perfect storm Ben Silverman and ABC's Steve McPherson spilling over into their networks' primetime schedules? ABC just moved the last new episode of Nielsen juggernaut Grey's Anatomy to January 10th, forcing NBC to shift the premiere of Celebrity Apprentice for the second time this week in apparent attempts to get the vulnerable show out of Grey's destructive path. There is no truth to the rumor that McPherson's scheduling move was announced to Silverman via the delivery of a muffin basket accompanied by a note reading, "Who's the little D-girl now, Big Ben?" [THR]

· Sean Penn's Into the Wild leads the Broadcast Critics Association awards nominations with seven nods, including best picture, director, actor, and writer. Meanwhile, the contrarian critics of San Francisco name Brad Pitt's little-seen outlaw-tone-poem The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford their best of the year. [Variety, Variety · ABC pulls last three episodes of Big Shots from the air despite its rapidly expiring supply of fresh scripted programming, handing its cushy, post-Grey's Anatomy timeslot to repeats of Private Practice. [THR]

· A happy thought as we head into the weekend: Before joining this morning's negotiations, the WGA released a statement addressing rumors currently circulating that the studios are soon going to accuse the writers of stalling, storm away from the bargaining table until after the holidays, and trash the entire fall TV and spring seasons in an effort to prolong the strike. The Guild assures the public that it wants to continue negotiations for as long as it takes to get a deal done, and that no one should take seriously the full-page THE WGA WANTS TO DESTROY CHRISTMAS ad, featuring a Santa Claus bludgeoned to death with a WGA picket sign, that the AMPTP will take out in major publications on Monday. [Variety]
· The strike has decimated the ratings for late night shows, as TV audiences are unwilling to sit through the repeats that have been running since writers hit the picket line in early November. The Tonight Show has been the most adversely affected, with numbers off 40 percent from last year. Amazingly, viewers are finding that "vintage" Leno episodes featuring the hottest stars of 1994 plugging long-forgotten projects haven't aged well. [Variety]

Since her first 10 Most Fascinating People special, a hodgepodge of politicos, celebrities, and persons of note that included everyone from the Archduke Ferdinand to Sarah Bernhardt, Barbara Walters annual compendium of the year's most spellbinding personalities has only grown more essential and, dare we say it, fascinating.

Remember Brad Womack, the slab of The Bachelor man-beef who ripped out America's heart, doused it in Old Spice, and then set the still-beating organ aflame by failing to pretend he'd fallen for either of the two contestants who'd survived weeks of televised culling? Of course you do. That stuff only happened a week ago! Anyway: after giving him the what-for on yesterday's program, today Ellen DeGeneres invited Womack to her show so that should could get some fucking answers to questions she felt weren't adequately addressed during the post-finale interrogation that repeatedly stole the breath of a studio audience scandalized by his inability to let love heal his tortured soul.

Truth be told, we can't be made to care about who took home the Golden Tap Shoes—by far the most coveted of all the celebrity-based reality TV talent competition trophies—on last night's Dancing with the Stars finale, even after discovering that the heady rush of victory was so overwhelming that the show's new champion was moved to drop his fiancée like she was a tango partner who caught fire in the middle of a dip. The only reason we even bothered to tune in to the fifteen-hour coronation ceremony was to check in on Marie Osmond, America's Emotionally Fragile Sweetheart, whom we weren't sure would survive the defeat her now-legendary Baby Doll Dance of Despair made all but inevitable.

· Var insightfully notes that picket lines full of bored writers marching in endless circles with little else to do but chat, network, and dream up theme events have transformed into something of a "social scene." [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Tom Hanks On A Budget Edition: Matthew Perry will play a grown-up version of Disney superstar Zac Efron in Big-in-reverse project 17, in which a suddenly teenaged, mysteriously overtanned Perry/Efron enrolls in high school so he can hang out with his children, who wonder why the "new gay kid" keeps trying so hard to become friends with them. [THR]

Perhaps taking a tip from Stephen King about America's youth and its lack of political knowledge, ABC is partnering with Facebook to create a political-coverage headquarters. You know, so between Wall posts and status updates, we can all get our daily Mitt fix. The deal will establish a U.S. Politics category on Facebook, allowing users to stalk follow ABC reporters, view reports, participate in polls, and carry on debates. ABC News, having recently discovered the notion of interactivity, says it will use Facebook as a platform to both share information and learn from its users. It's also likely the first time most of Facebook's users will learn that ABC has a news broadcast.

·The strike indefinitely delays two more star-studded productions, with Johnny Depp's Shantaram and Nine, Chicago director Rob Marshall's next musical (with Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz), having their planned early-2008 start dates postponed. [Variety]
· The WGA agrees not to picket Paramount on December 1st, answering Elizabeth Taylor's appeal not to interfere with her benefit performance of "Love Letters" with all their loud chanting and potentially legend-upstaging strike-dancing. [Variety]
· Meanwhile, CBS News employees have overwhelmingly authorized a strike of their own, allowing the WGA to fight a two-front war if it so chooses. [Variety]

In an unprecedented move that threatens to undermine the sacred premise of future installments of ABC's blockbuster TV-matchmaking franchise The Bachelor, America's heart was cleaved in twain as Brad Womack (billed repeatedly as The Sexiest Bachelor Yet!) refused to pretend that he'd fallen for any of this season's desperate-for-companionship contestants and offer one of the show's trademark, temporary-commitment-affirming engagement rings to either finalist, walking away from the the series finale as a single man.