Under intense pressure from officials from the Clinton administration who felt that ABC's miniseries The Path to 9/11 contained fabricated scenes insinuating that the then-president was too preoccupied with a possible impeachment to give the order to kill Osama bin Laden, the network aired an edited version of its first installment last night in which some disputed scenes were altered to deflect accusations of bias. But rather than anger Republicans by shifting blame from Clinton to the Bush administration, ABC decided to take a more politically neutral, if radical, direction, rebranding the project as a "reimagining" of the events leading up to the September 11th attacks, which in tonight's miniseries finale are discovered to have been masterminded by an evil extraterrestrial sleeper cell that had been living among us since 1947, an eventuality that couldn't possibly have been foreseen by either party.

· ABC is tinkering with its 9/11 miniseries to address the concerns of pissed-off Democrats who are nitpicking over the project's "despicable, irresponsible fraud," and also allegedly considering the "bombshell" move of pulling the program altogether. The network has defended itself against the Dems' claims by saying the movie isn't a documentary, but rather "this funny little thing we threw together because everyone seemed to have a September 11th movie." [Variety]
· Tom Freston is cheered on his way out the door at Viacom, while it's reported that his successor will be getting a $2 million base salary to lead the employees who will never love him the way they loved good old Tom. [THR]
· Hollywoodland's release this weekend signals the unofficial start of Hollywood's post-Labor-Day, pre-real-awards-contender, "Here come the movies that we hope will get an Oscar nomination, but if not, no biggie" season. [Variety]
· News Corp pays billionaire overlord Rupert Murdoch a $21 million bonus, while you will be lucky to get an Olive Garden gift certificate in a holiday card at the end of the year. [THR]
· Oscar producer Laura Ziskin says that with new host Ellen Degeneres, "You're as happy to see her in Hour Three of the show as you are in Hour One." That is, if you've already punctured your eardrums with a letter opener sometime in Hour Two. [Variety]

• Time Warner is moving its retail operations to Parsippany, New Jersey (nickname: The City of Lights). Does this foretell further moves west for other segments of the organization? Will Time be setting up shop in Secaucus? Probably not; that would require that its leadership have some sense of direction. [Fishbowl NY]
• Bill Clinton's got his (or some intern's) knickers in a twist about an ABC 9/11 "documentary" which claims that he pretty much flew those planes into the towers himself. [NYP]
• Aging talk show host has another four years to run his once legendary legacy into the ground. [ETP]

If there is a Desperate Housewives fanatic in your life, may we suggest gifting them with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dine and mingle with the show's cast at the home of series creator, Marc Cherry, as part of a GLAAD fundraising event:

After months of goosebump-inducing lesbianticipation, Rosie O'Donnell at last made her debut as a regular co-host of The View today. Amply filling Meredith Vieira's vacated chair—in high heels and makeup no less—Rosie looked every bit the bulldyke lady, with only Joy Behar beaming more, as visions of tag-teaming Elisabeth Hasselbeck danced in her head. After Rosie assures the cameras that she's been cured of all asymmetrical hairdos and rampaging mood swings now that she's "taking her medicine," the subject quickly turns to that of longtime, nonsexual crush Tom Cruise, and the gargantuan floral arrangement sent by none other sitting conspicuously at her feet—a lush bouquet of blossoms plucked from the greenhouses of Scientology's Gilman Hot Springs headquarters, and specially bred to dispense an intoxicating aroma that should have the typically outspoken and opinionated View team coming to an almost magically harmonious agreement in the days to come on the life-changing benefits of a sauna-and-vitamins based lifestyle.

In a conference call explaining Tom Freston's exit from Viacom, a displeased Sumner Redstone let on that he was "like, Tom-Cruise-shitcanning pissed" that Freston let MySpace slip through their fingers and get snapped up by rival Rupert Murdoch. [Variety]
And just because repetition is fun, here's THR noting the same thing from the conference call. [THR]
Studios embrace box office mediocrity, as their collective summer tally is up six percent this year over last thanks to middle-performing, lower-budgeted films. [Variety]
· The studios urge the Guilds not to prematurely complain about the screwing they're getting while the networks "experiment" with streaming content, assuring them that once the platform becomes a viable retail option like downloading, they'll figure out a way to give them the same, unsatisfying ass-fucking they're taking on iTunes residuals. [THR]
· Realizing that even a limited corporate sponsorship of its Path to 9/11 minseries might make the network seem like tragedy-exploiting whores, ABC decides to go with a commercial-free broadcast. [Variety]

Because daytime television is THE MOST IMPORTANT SHIT IN THE WORLD, your panties are no doubt soaked with excitement over celebrity lesbian Rosie O'Donnell's debut as the new co-host on The View. If you're so cursed (or blessed) as to not be watching it live, let us just note that it's really not worth a live-blog. In fact, the only excitement is just in seeing Rosie O'Donnell sitting there with nice hair and makeup (per her contract). She acknowledged that her old alpha-lesbian routine terrified America and, to make it up to everyone, Rosie's even wearing high heels on her first day. See? She's a lady. And oh, how the ratings will skyrocket! (Granted, Rosie could come out and do her shortbus routine and lick a can of peas, and ABC would reap the rewards.)

Starz, the movie channel your local cable provider helpfully packages with HBO, Showtime, or the Black Inches On Demand Network, we forget which, plans to produce 12 movies a year for all platforms. [Variety]
THR generously explains Sarah Michelle Gellar's signing on to star in the low-budget-sounding, South Korean thriller adaptation Addicted as her "hoping to continue her winning streak in the genre business," rather than "taking the only kinds of roles she's offered anymore." [THR]
Anna Faris to go blonde, dumb in a Paramount comedy about a former centerfold who becomes a sorority house mother. Excuse us, a house mother "at UCLA's lamest sorority." Prepare yourselves for the obligatory, giddy makeover scene in which Faris tarts up some of her mousy charges. [Variety]
Celebrity Duets leads Fox to a Tuesday ratings win. How the hell did this premiere without us knowing about it? Our TiVo is clearly still angry at us for making it record an entire, ultimately unwatched season of Skating with Celebrities. [THR]
Hoping to not have to dream up a completely new title for their adaptation of the British phenomenon Footballers' Wives, ABC decides to transition the show's trashy soccer spouses to American football. [Variety]

Though NBC's Emmy ratings were shitty, the network at least avoided the shame of hosting the Shittiest-Rated Emmys Ever.
[Variety]
Two shocking developments out of ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live is still on the air (is Snoop Dogg still co-host?), and it's been renewed through 2008. The show plans to celebrate its first 3 1/2 years of existence with the whimsically titled special, Jimmy Kimmel Live's All-Star Salute to Jimmy Kimmel Live!. The fun never stops. [THR]
BET founder Robert L. Johnson's production company for making African-American-centered films, Our Stories, hires its first president and CEO, Tracey E. Edmonds, whose first act was to quickly reject partner Harvey Weinstein's suggestion to change the company's name to Urban Stories so that white people would feel less guilty about ignoring their output. [Variety]
· We're not sure we want to live in a world where someone can set up a movie based on the lives of Elisabeth and Andrew Shue. [THR]
Cruise/Wagner's Paula Wagner cites the "synergy" between her company and the amusement park moneymen who will bankroll their overhead and development costs as the reason for their unconventional partnership, as well as the fact that the diminutive actor has long sought friends who could "sneak him onto the big boy rides at Magic Mountain." That's right, with so many ripe areas to choose from, we go for the hacky height joke. [Variety]

Network news: it's the story that just keeps giving. Today the Times takes a long look at the increased level of network news competition in anticipation of Katie Couric's splashy-yet-deliberately-unsplashy debut as the anchor of the CBS evening news. NBC is hanging gargantuan banners of Brian Williams outside of the CBS studio (a technique taken straight from the New York Post) while Williams blathers on about the "anchor-viewer relationship"; ABC's Charlie Gibson is being marketed as "Your Trusted Source," which hearkens back to the late Peter Jennings, whose slogan was "Trust is Earned." Blah trust blah blah trust blah.

• After six years of awkward, head-scratching marriage, Kate Hudson and Chris Robinson finally seperate. That's what happens once the baby weight comes off. [TMZ]
• WTC Commemorative coins "clad in 24 KT gold and .999 Pure Silver recovered from Ground Zero!" The best part? The twin towers actually pop up from the coin — so if you're a terrorist, you can buy it to watch the towers go down over and over again. [National Collector's Mint]
• The most damning assessment of them all: "The buzz around Radar is totally unrelated to reality." [New York Business]
• The real tragedy of Christian Science Monitor reporter Jill Carroll's ordeal as a hostage in Iraq? That she's now running free with that hair. [CBS]
• Jaqueline Passey has "a *lot*" of options when it comes to dating. But because she's an arrogant twit, she'll remain single. [Jaqueline Passey]
• ABC's Dancing With the Stars hits a new low for its upcoming season: not content to merely feature the waltzing skills of Tucker Carlson, they've also cast Emmitt Smith and Jerry Springer as contestants. [B&C]
• Hipster girls don't respond well to the banker boys of Craigslist. [CL]
• Simon Dumenco has seen the future of the Today show, and it involves Jell-o wrestling. Hallelujah! [AdAge]

· Now that we've been softened up to 9/11-based Hollywood projects by United 93 and World Trade Center, it's time to gird ourselves for the onslaught of TV specials tied to the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Especially promising (read: dread-inducing) is ABC's upcoming Path to 9/11 miniseries, which will run with "limited commercial" interruption, a choice network head Steve McPherson explains thusly: "Some things you do for commerce and some things because they are the right thing to do." Apparently, it's OK to make a little money from a tragedy, but not too much. [Variety]
· Pirates 2 pulls down another $44 million at the international box office, and jumps nine places on the all-time worldwide list with its $855 million cumulative gross. Yup, still a shitload of money. [THR]
News Corp prepares to roll out the next phase of its evil plan to coopt the internet as a distribution channel for its entertainment products, announcing plans to sell downloads of Fox TV shows and films via MySpace and Direct2Drive. [Variety]
Agent Dance Mini Edition: Veteran TV agent Steve Glick lasts just a year at ICM, as he ditches/is ditched by the agency following its purchase of BWCS and its shinier television department. [THR]
CBS Paramount TV signs up Laguna Beach producers Gary and Julie Auerbach to create more "unscripted" shows that forego even token attempts at representing reality. [Variety]

With the only talented, productive member of the Spelling dynasty gone, it falls to the surviving Spelling women to proudly bear the torch, and honor their beloved in the best way they know how: by doing everything in their power to slander the other's good name while sabotaging planned, competing TV tributes.

Nicole Kidman to joins the cast of The Golden Compass, the first installment of the His Dark Materials trilogy, as the "villainous and glamorous Mrs. Coulter." There is no mention of Mel Gibson's recent anti-Semitic remarks in this totally unrelated story. [Variety]
Bryan Singer signs a seven-figure TV deal with ABC to develop three scripts, one of which is guaranteed to go to pilot. Again, there is no Mel Gibson angle to this story that we can discern. [THR]
Paramount Pictures buys the comedy pitch The Donor from Jon Stewart's Busboy Productions as a starring vehicle for the Daily Show's Rob Corddry. The logline is being kept top secret, but go ahead and assume it has something to do with a guy who embarks on a hilarious quest to sells his internal organs on the black market. [Variety]
Jessica Biel joins Adam Sandler and Kevin James in their "two straight schlubs get gay married for health benefits" comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. If you guessed she'll be playing the hot chick who eventually falls for Adam Sandler, consider an exciting career as a casting agent. [THR]

ICM acquisition of BWCS is called a "perfect" fit, especially once they get rid of all those superfluous agents that might that fit a little too tight for comfort. [Variety, THR]
CBS will cough up the $550,000 indecency fine for showing Janet Jackson's nipple at the Super Bowl, but only because they have to pay the penalty to fight the ruling in court. [THR]
The WGA and America's Next Top Model writers continue to strike outside the show's offices, while The CW continues to dodge their unionization request by telling the strikers to kill a few months talking to the National Labor Relations Board. [Variety]
· Ed Helms will reunite with Daily Show buddy Steve Carell in a recurring role on The Office. [THR]
ABC's American Idol knockoff The One pulls such amazingly low ratings that's it's canceled a mere week after its anemic debut. We'd like to think this means that viewers are tired of AI clones, but we know that seven more series like this will probably rise to take its place. [Variety]

Disney's Cast Member Massacre started in earnest with a round of layoffs yesterday. But in a happier note, studio chairman Dick Cook seems to be getting a hang of the termination business, as Buena Vista exec VP Karen Glass was let go nowhere near a delivery room. [Variety]
Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence has signed on to adapt and direct the prequel to Fletch, Fletch Won. His friends have instructed him to not "fuck it up," a directive made all the more challenging by the planned miscasting of Zach Braff in the title role. [Variety]
In Hollywood, everything old is senselessly new again: 50 years after its Broadway debut, ABC plans a musical version of Peter Pan for television. [Variety]
Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat movie will premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and maybe we've already gulped the Kazakh Kool-Aid, but even the title has us excited: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. [Variety]

It would pretty much take Mo'nique being dragged off a plane amidst concern she's some kind of terrorist threat for us to take notice of the plus-sized Pepsi pitchwoman, which is precisely what happened as she boarded a United flight headed to her guest hosting gig on The View. From ET Online:

Disney employees whose heads are on the chopping block anxiously await their bloody fates, as mass executions are
reportedly scheduled to be conducted next week. [Variety]
The Senate may soon vote on legislation that would require Hollywood to keep track of the ages of actors who pretend to have sex scenes in movies and TV shows. It is unknown if Dakota Fanning can be grandfathered into future rape-related roles should the bill become law. [THR]
George Clooney parts ways with producing partner Steven Soderbergh at Section 8, but is forming new production company Smoke House with Good Night, And Good Luck collaborator/BFF Grant Heslov and sticking around at Warner Bros. The new venture is named for the famous Burbank restaurant, a choice made after an arduous branding process determined that calling the shingle Dimples would be far too cute. [Variety]
NBC's America's Got Talent and Fox's So You Think You Can Dance both trounce ABC's The One in the ratings on Wednesday, a programming block that will soon come to be known as Utterly Unwatchable American Idol Rip-off Night. [THR]
· Canadians do an adorable impression of an American-style studio executive ouster, as Motion Picture Distribution unexpectedly shitcans two of its bigshots. [Variety]

TV Week's TCA blog attended the press conference for Men In Trees, a show on ABC's fall schedule starring Anne Heche as a relationship guru who swears off men, only to find herself stranded in Alaska and surrounded by the incorrigible critters! (We give it six weeks.) One brave TV critic soldier gingerly broached the subject of Heche's tinfoil-hat-wearing past:

· Lost in the sexier story of Nina Jacobson's firing from Disney yesterday is the fact that 650 other employees will be laid off worldwide. Sadly, Disney lacks the resources to let each employee go with a personal phone call during a happy family occasion, so the soon-to-be axed shouldn't get their hopes up about seeing studio executioner Dick Cook's name pop up on their Caller ID [Variety]
Hollywood studios make their annual trip to Comic-Con in San Diego, where they collect nerd souls in exchange for access to sneak previews of various comic-related movie properties. This year, a glimpse of ten seconds of previously unseen Spider-Man 3 footage is expected to net pledges of eternal fealty from over two dozen dungeon masters. [THR, Variety]
Wall Street happily drenches itself in the blood of slaughtered Disney staffers, helping the company's stock price
jumps 4% after news of their layoffs. Mouse House executives today hope to push the stock price as much as 20 % percent higher by announcing their plans to fire every employee on the payroll. [Variety]
NBC teams with Netflix to give users advance DVD previews of new shows Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Kidnapped, in hopes that viewers will become hooked weeks before the series actually premiere. [THR/AP]
ABC president "Purple" Steve McPherson is happy about all the Emmy attention for Gray's Anatomy, but blue that Lost and Desperate Housewives were slighted by the Academy. [Variety]