When one's creatively adventurous casino musical murder mystery bombs so spectacularly that everyone involved is still picking the bloody sequins from the costumes of cabaret dancers killed in the low-rated blast out of their hair several days later, one can either go into hiding, hoping the media will stop calling to find out What Went Wrong, or one can hold one's head high to proclaim (in song, preferably), "Nothing ventured, nothing gained!" We're not sure which route Hugh Jackman eventually plans to take, but his wife has chosen the latter option:

We've just obtainted the new draft of the planned Les Moonves ad to be published in tomorrow's trades: "Hey, writers—You know what? Fuck you. I'll cancel my disappointing Fall season myself, bit by bit. Goodbye, Viva Laughlin! By the time you go on strike, there won't be anything left for you to walk out on. Love, Les. PS—Tell Patric Verrone to check his mailbox. The ear in that bloody wad of Kleenex is Hugh Jackman's. Just wait until he gets four of Jimmy Smits' favorite toes on Wednesday morning when I sacrifice Cane to the cause." [Var]

· Naomi Watts is on board to star in Universal's remake of The Birds, which, thankfully, the studio isn't rushing into production, allowing time for a possible rewrite of the script still in development that could further address the avian-backstory problems they've previously identified in the Hitchcock original. [Variety]
· While Hollywood eagerly awaits the results of the WGA's strike authorization vote, writers and studios won't resume their tug of war over a giant pencil until Monday morning. [THR]

In a development that will probably surprise no one save the Hugh Jackman producing partner who counseled the star, "You know what we be an inspired career move, Hugh? Let's get you into a TV project with casinos. But not Vegas—someone's done that already, I think? Oh, also? There should be SINGING! And a murrrrder!," the debut of CBS's conceptually adventurous Viva Laughlin bombed so badly that network corporate overlord Les Moonves may order the execution of everyone involved after its next airing. Reports TV Week on the Nielsen carnage:

"Would you rather own Facebook or CBS.com? I'd rather own Facebook." — CBS Interactive president Quincy Smith, explaining at the Web 2.0 Summit why the watercooler buzz has moved from broadcast TV to social networks.

WEB 2.0 SUMMIT — In an interview with former Business 2.0 editor Josh Quittner, Quincy Smith, the frenetically dealmaking CBS Web chief, looks so bored. So bored. As Quittner rambles on with a long, involved tale about his mancrush on awesomely geeky GigaOm blogger Om Malik, Smith is scanning the audience and jotting down notes, as if he's plotting, mid-panel, which startups he's going to buy at the show.

Even though yesterday's Hollywood Radio and TV Society luncheon and panel discussion has to be declared an overall disappointment because NBC perfect storm Ben Silverman and combative ABC president Steve McPherson, appearing together for the first time since McPherson challenged the network rival who took his best buddy's job to "be a man," failed to come to the blows the assembled journalists not-so-secretly hoped for, director/producer Barry Sonnenfeld did earn positive notices ("One of the HRTS' more lively moderators in recent memory!" raves Variety) for his hosting work at the event. THR compiles a greatest hits package of Sonnenfeld's attempts at comic relief:

In a sneak preview of tonight's installment of Kid Nation just leaked online, we learn that the citizens of CBS Bonanza City will finally abandon the preternatural maturity that has previously allowed them to choose sensible waste-elimination facilities over a television and soul-nurturing Bibles over a productivity-diminishing mini-golf course, opting for a communal reward too irresistible to pass up in favor of a more practical prize.

Everything after the final notes of its familiar theme, from the playing out of a highly suspect "perfect game," to the friendly sign-off reminder to "help control the sex-worker population: Have a hooker spayed or neutered today," suggested a new era has dawned at The Price is Right. Gone is Bob Barker's well-calibrated "atmosphere of terror." In its place is new host Drew Carey's atmosphere of congeniality, where every contestant is referred to as "buddy" or "man," and where new cars are given away with a frequency that would make Oprah blush.

Knowing that CBS's decision to pass on pilot Babylon Fields for a midseason replacement timeslot means that audiences will now never get the chance to experience the network's bold attempt to invigorate the moribund crime procedural genre with the edgy, zombie-fucking action it was sorely lacking, TV Week.com has resurrected some clips from the aborted series, giving us a glimpse of the necrophilia-tinged primetime programming we could all be enjoying instead of the tepid offerings involving vampires or Jimmy Smits that made the schedule instead. Explains TV Week:

· Ray director Taylor Hackford convinces "very busy" wife Helen Mirren and semi-retired actor Joe Pesci to star in Love Ranch, the heartwarming tale of the man who established Nevada's first legal brothel, his madam spouse, and the boxer gunned down by a bodyguard for his suspected sexual involvement with the aforementioned Mustang Ranch proprietress. [Variety]
· Justice League director George Miller is auditioning virtually every young actor in Hollywood (Adam Brody! Minka Kelly! Mary Elizabeth Winstead!) during a "marathon casting session" running through today, hoping that the cattle call will help him fill coveted parts like Superman, Batman, the Flash and Wonder Woman with talent cheap enough to stay together for several movies. [THR]
· Led Zeppelin is finally making their music available online, with the band's entire catalogue hitting the internets on November 13. Also: the "Black Dog" ringtone you've been wanting since you were sixteen will soon be made available. [Variety]
· CBS wins Sunday night after the Patriots-Cowboys game runs long, though ABC's Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters both put up better numbers than last week. [THR]
· Overseas moviegoers continue to delight in Pixar's animated story of a talented rat who saved a fading French bistro by flouting Paris's overly restrictive restaurant cleanliness laws. [Variety]

· Yet more stars sign on to JJ Abrams's much-ballyhooed Star Trek: Early 30s project, including Hot Fuzz's Simon Pegg as Scotty, and John "What? He's Korean? Enh, Close Enough" Cho as Sulu. [Variety, THR]
· CBS signed musical-adapting superduo Craig Zadan and Neil Meron to a three movie deal, meaning at long last Jennifer Love Hewitt in Hello, Dolly! is no longer just a pipe dream. [Variety]
· Director Zack Snyder is reteaming with his 300 team for The Last Photograph, about "a photograph that becomes the catalyst for a journey two abs-licious men undertake through war-torn Afghanistan, upon which they meet a really gay bald guy with a jangly nose-ring." We're there! [Variety]
· Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment is making a "major push" into TV, including Hitch the sitcom, based on the movie of the same name we'd sooner apply a Braun hand-blender to our privates than see. [THR]
· Is Will Ferrell video hub FunnyorDie.com "coasting on the fumes of Landlord?" If so, they may wanna consider giving Pearl a bigger trailer and a piece of the viral backend. [THR]

While we've already paid one visit today to Kid Nation—by way of some exclusive Junior Miss cheesecake glamour shots of Taylor, or "Queen of the Yellow Hankies" as she insists her disciples refer to her— we thought we'd return once again to the outhouse-deficient Shangri-La, this time with clip in tow. In last night's stunning turn of events, the citizens of Bonanza City were again offered a choice as steeped in moral implication as the TVs vs. Poop-Shacks vote of the debut episode.

Perhaps you've heard some mutterings that the producers of Kid Nation exploited their underage cast and violated child labor laws. Pshaw! At least one of those kids arrived to the show pre-exploited.

Why was a roomful of venture capitalists and lawyers clinking champagne glasses at Zibibbo in Palo Alto last week? The target of their fulsome praise was entrepreneur Anthony Soohoo, a former Yahoo executive. And the reason? He had managed to flip his website Dotspotter, yet another celebrity gossip site with thoroughly derivative social-networking features, to CBS for a quick $10 million. Dotspotter's short one-year lifepspan didn't scare off serial charmer Quincy Smith, the startup-mad head of CBS Interactive. Having bought financial videoblog Wallstrip and Web-based social music site Last.fm, we can only conclude that Smith's strategy is to buy a lot of startups, throw them against the wall, and see what sticks. Nice work, especially when CBS shareholders are footing the bill. And who's receiving the checks? One of Dotspotter's beneficiaries, we hear, is Facebook CFO Gideon Yu. Nice to have a backup plan in case all those social networks turn out to be a fad.

· Hollywood Out Of Ideas, Feature-to-TV Recycling Edition: Demonstrating a company-wide commitment to reducing its new-idea-footprint, NBC Universal's USA Network plans a TV series based on Thank You for Smoking, while its NBC flagship will try to adapt Outsourced into a primetime workplace comedy. [Variety, Variety]
· If this doesn't stoke your interest in the upcoming Ashton Kutcher/Carmeon Diaz comedy What Happens in Vegas... (not to be confused with the recently announced, Kutcher-free Dude, Where's My Groom?) nothing will: Queen Latifah has signed on for a cameo so hilarious that if the details of her participation were to escape, the entire project would be doomed to turnaround. [THR]
· Just in case you hadn't heard, last week's WGA contract talks weren't as friendly as they could have been. [Variety]
· NBC wins Sunday night behind its Packers-Bears football game, beating lineups from ABC and CBS that dropped off from last week's numbers. [THR]
· While American moviegoers largely shunned this weekend's offerings, overseas ticket-buyers turned out for Rataouille to the the tune of $19.7 million. [Variety]

Even after his departure from a 35-year tenure hosting the Price is Right, cat-sterilization fanatic Bob Barker still finds himself party to yet another in a long string of harassment lawsuits from disgruntled female employees: nine in 13 years, to be exact, with all plaintiffs represented by the same guy—attorney and mutesmodels' rights advocate, Nick Alden. The latest complainant suggests she was demoted from P.A. to the far more demeaning rope-and-pulley-tugging duty after she testified against Barker in an earlier lawsuit:

While we never expected Kid Nation's pioneers to succumb to the siren song of virgin sasparilla this quickly, it was inevitable that residents of CBS Bonanza City would eventually turn to drink to blunt the pain of their workaday lives; after all, there are only so many filthy, overflowing outhouses a ten-year-old can scrub before she needs a little help forgetting she's trapped in the Laborer class for at least another week.

Second Life is well past its prime on the hype cycle. Which makes it, of course, just the right time for the sluggish broadcast-TV networks to discover it. The producers of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" have determined it's time to investigate the crime-scene-in-the-making of virtual worlds. Two college girls get sucked into a fantasy playscape — a fictional Second Life clone, Another Youniverse.

The Huffington Post has named former CBSNews.com chief Betsy Morgan the political blog's new CEO, replacing cofounder Ken Lerer. One hopes that, unlike the site's columnists, she'll actually get paid. [Silicon Alley Insider]