· Rory and Lorelai will banter adorably no more forever: The CW announces that Gilmore Girls will air its final episode on May 15. We're not too sad, as we're sure the network has alternative MILF-related programming ready to take its place in the Fall. [Variety]
· Chris Von Goetz and Kevin Crotty are named co-heads of the TV lit department at ICM., which had been leaderless since the merger with BWCS. All we really care about: How nice are their shoes? Are we talking Whitesell nice or WMA nice? [THR]
· George Clooney and producing BFF Grant Heslov will co-write a dramedy, about how the CIA used Hollywood to stage a fake movie project (which was so well-faked Var and THR wrote about it) to sneak hostages out of Tehran in 1979, for Warner Brothers. [Variety]
· 28.1 million Idol fans tuned in to watch the final performances of The One Who Thinks He's Justin Timblerlake—As If! and The One Now Free From Being Forced To Wear Funny Hats By Cruel Wardrobe Assistants on Wednesday night. [THR]
· HBO will air a concert featuring the real Timberlake (suck, it Richardson!), its first one in four years. [Variety]

In what Var has dubbed Bloody Monday, but which we will counterdub Mercy-Killing Monday to emphasize the networks' compassionate desire to euthanize a handful of shows languishing in a Nielsen coma from which they are unlikely to ever awaken, Fox's The Wedding Bells, ABC's Six Degrees, The CW's 7th Heaven, and NBC's The Black Donnellys have all entered different phases of the always complex cancellation process. This morning, heavy-handed Donelleys creator Paul Haggis is using his pair of stolen Oscars to wipe away the tears he's shedding over the loss of his primetime baby, his pain compounded by Var's swift kick to the gut during this moment of vulnerability:

Fans inclined to take Fox up on its above-referenced request to send in videos explaining how Seth Cohen's ability to lay the hottest chick in school despite being a comics-obsessed social pariah helped them kick their cutting habits may want to hold off on their submissions, as the network today finally made the long-awaited announcement that it's euthanizing the struggling series. Series creator Josh "I'm Too Busy With Other Stuff To Even Notice This Is Happening" Schwartz puts a happy face on the news in the Fox press release about the show's demise:

ABC yanks both the stillborn Day Break and Nielsen bed-Shatter Show Me The Money from its airwaves, spackling episodes of America's Funniest Home Videos, According to Jim, and George Lopez into the resulting cracks in their schedule. [Variety]
Bob Yari picks another Oscar season battle, this one with Warner Brothers over their lack of support (quotable gripe: "Someone up there wants the film buried.") for The Painted Veil. [THR]
Judith Regan's late Friday firing from HarperCollins, ostensibly over the PR shitstorms caused be her O.J. hypothetical murder confession book and Mickey Mantle sex novel, leaves the media with many questions regarding the ownership of certain properties, as well as the future of the ReganBooks imprint. [Variety]
The Survivor: Cook Islands finale gives CBS a Sunday night ratings win over football and Christmas specials on competing networks. Unfortunately, we missed the show and have no idea which race finally proved its superiority in building boats out of driftwood and tolerating Jeff Probst's smarmy presence. [THR]
· USA Network beats other basic cable networks for the rights to Casino Royale with a $20 million offer, with Spike eventually bowing out because it ultimately "felt a little gay" bidding up a movie in which James Bond repeatedly doffs his shirt to show off his abs. [Variety]

The studios are jamming 65 releases down audiences' throats between Nov. 17th and the New Year, hoping to establish favorable awards season position and reap quick profits from a barrage of holiday-themed movies. [Variety]
For those who think Neil Patrick Harris and T.R. Knight's coming out announcements were progress, the THR cautions to wait and see what happens when a Rock Hudson-type steps out of the closet, instead of Doogie and a guy who's "practically one of the girls on Grey's." [THR]
Fox is shy about using the word "canceled" to describe Justice, instead preferring the gentler "pulled from the schedule, never to be seen again, except for possibly on tiny TV sets on budget-fare Eastern European airlines." Meanwhile, ABC gives What About Brian a full season pick-up. [Variety]
Heads have finally started to roll for NBCUni's "Layoffs 2.0" initiative, with about 15 Dateline NBC staffers sacrificing their paychecks to the company's bottom line. [THR]
Two best friends go batshit insane when they pick the same wedding date, starring Kate Hudson. That's pretty much all you need to know. [Variety]

We usually reserve our speculation about Studio 60's chances of being allowed to continue to trumpet the socially redeeming power of unrelentingly serious-minded sketch comedy shows until the disappointing Tuesday morning ratings numbers for NBC's little momentum-stopper come in, but Fox 411 gossip Roger Friedman's report that the network is ready to nail presumed Nielsen Messiah Aaron Sorkin to the crucifix of cancellation forces us to consider the sad possibility that we may have watched our last tortured interaction between Matt Albie and the woman he dumped for singing to Pat Robertson:

Today's NY Times uses the example of Smith, the quickly dispatched CBS drama whose birth/death cycle was an impressively efficient three weeks, to illustrate how the itchy trigger-fingers of jittery, hit-hungry TV executives seem to have doomed the on-air existence of TV's "modest successes," shows that fall somewhere between total Nielsen bed-shitters and instant, inexplicable, Deal or No Deal-type hits. But after hearing CBS head executioner Nina Tassler dissect the reasons she dispassionately strangled the show with a piece of piano wire, Smith sounds less like a "modest success" than a "show that people checked out once or twice, then decided they weren't interested in." Reports the Times:

It really does get easier for a network to get rid of shows once they've popped their cancellation cherries. And this is largely a philosophical question, but is a show truly "canceled" if it never makes it to the air? It seems like "aborted" might be the more accurate term, but that word makes for far more unsavory headlines.

According to the AP, CBS has announced that it's yanking Smith off the air, making the aborted series the holder of the largely semantic distinction of being the first new fall show cancelled. To show just how serious they are about the break-up, CBS has already scrubbed Smith from the primetime show lists and schedule on its site (see our attached illustration of where it used to live), though they haven't gotten around to changing the timeslot information on its individual page. On a more positive note, those who might have trouble to adjusting to Ray Liotta's premature exit from the airwaves can still visit him in Innertube limbo by clicking on the actor's somber face on the CBS homepage, momentarily streaming themselves back to the happy time before impatient programming executives decided to pull the plug on his Nielsen respirator.

While Fox continues to insist that the just-yanked Happy Hour hasn't been officially euthanized in an attempt not to concede this Fall season's game of First Cancellation Chicken to the other networks, according to Variety, they've also quietly given a couple of their troubled, new series a pair of "unscheduled hiatuses" to get their shit together: