The good news is that we're not going to get a fourth painfully derivative iteration of CBS's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation franchise. The bad news is that creator Anthony Zuiker has decided to build a CSI-branded crime lab in Second Life. This fall, Gary Sinise, the lead on CSI: New York, will chase a killer into virtual worlds. Viewers can then follow the Gary Sinise avatar into Second Life, where they'll help solve the mystery in a virtual Crime Lab. The television conclusion will air sometime in the spring.

Once CBS chief Nina Tassler used her platform at the TCA's to clarify that the "creative differences" that drove Mandy Patinkin to bolt Criminal Minds were more of the "personal issues" nature (to her credit, she refrained from pandering to the assembled critics by making comically exaggerated cuckoo noises and twirling a finger around her temple), we thought our PatinkinWatch feature had seen its last update. But this morning, TVGuide.com puts the actor back on our radar, reporting that he'll return to the Minds set to make a final appearance in a single, closure-providing scene:

"Radio host Don Imus has agreed to settle his claim with CBS for $20 million, and a non disparaging clause, legal sources claim. The move opens the possibility Imus will soon return to the airwaves—on WABC in New York! Developing..." [Drudge]

As of 6:30 this morning, the 4/5/6 line was running at "slower speeds" because of "water on the tracks." Congratulations, New York, we're finally a third world country! If we were terrorists we'd just sit back and let the weather take care of things. Anyway, we weren't the only one with problems. Big trouble up at the Time Warner Center, the Mordor that marks the northern border of Midtown.

· Var issues its tribute to Hollywood ladypower, the Women's Impact Report, as well as its Hazardous Impact Report, an inventory of the tabloid-attracting trainwrecks who seek to sabotage the work of the Stacey Sniders, Nancy Tellems, and Laura Ziskins of the world. [Variety, Variety]
· Has there ever been a worse time to be a TV viewer? CBS and Fox split the ratings race last night behind a Two and Half Men repeat and a new episode of Hell's Kitchen. [THR]
·"U[niversal] brass felt Vaughn was money and he didn't even know it." [Variety]
· Wondering what Blair Underwood's been up to? Knock yourselves out. [THR]
· Hollywood StrikeWatch, Stockpiling Edition: A report from permitting agency Film LA to be released today reveals that local TV and feature production has risen at a rate unseen since the eve of a feared 2001 strike, a figure suggesting that the studios are indeed squirreling away all the product they can in preparation for a possible work stoppage next year. Meanwhile, WGA members are making their own preparations by fighting over pallets of canned corn in the aisles of Costco. [Variety]

Mark Burnett's Pirate Master, the reality TV guru's bold attempt to fuse Survivor with, um, Survivor with people in bad pirate costumes, has been canceled. CBS will burn off its remaining episodes online, for those who simply must know which eyepatched contestant made off with the booty. [USAToday.com]

Having determined that Hi Lo matches would in no way be enhanced by a clinically depressed hostess who'd interrupt the popular pricing game to vengefully accuse announcer Rich Fields of having betrayed her, producers of The Price is Right opted not to go with Rosie O'Donnell as Bob Barker's successor. Instead, TV Week reports, CBS has made an official offer to former sitcom star and improv referee Drew Carey:

With outrage over Isaiah Washington's unexpected casting in Bionic Woman fading, a new, and dare we say much more interesting, controversy is materializing at the TCAs over Kid Nation, CBS's attempt to inject some much-needed Lord of the Flies-style fun into their Fall schedule. Earlier, TV Week reported on how the producers took advantage of subsequently tightened loopholes in New Mexico's child labor laws and classified the production as a "summer camp" (summer camps, after all, are totally fun, and not at all child-exploiting places of employment) to get the show done; today, ABC News asks a psychologist to opine on how the impressionable minds of these campers might be impacted by the stresses of reality TV:

Hoping to finally close the Case of the Vanishing Criminal Minds Star, reporters at today's CBS Television Critics Association panel confronted president Nina Tassler about the exact nature of the "creative differences" that might induce an actor to flee a successful series without explanation. Clarified Tassler:

The search for actor Mandy Patinkin, whose recent. mysterious failure to appear at the table read of whatever second-tier CBS procedural he stars on engaged all of Hollywood in a desperate manhunt for the missing thespian late last week, is over. The good news: Patinkin seems to be OK, and both his network and studio have thus refrained from assassinating his character in the press over the no-show. The bad news: "creative differences"—the "it's not you, it's me" of insincere Hollywood excuses—have driven him off the series. Says Broadcasting & Cable:

Advancing the story of Mandy Patinkin's unexplained absence from yesterday's table read for CBS procedural Criminal Minds [Ed.note—Is that the one with David Caruso and the sunglasses or the one with Vincent D'Onofrio and the perverts? Have an intern look that up.] broken on E!'s Watch with Kristin blog, TVGuide.com's Ausiello Report says that the show's producers are retaliating by writing the actor out of their episode:

Sun Valley, the quiet Idaho ski resort town, is about to get a charge from Silicon Valley. Allen & Co., the New York investment bank, has been holding an exclusive conference there for 25 years, but until recently, the invite list has been limited to old-media moguls. On the invite list for this year's conference, which kicks off tonight: Jay Adelson, CEO of Digg, the social-news website, which he cofounded with Kevin Rose. Here's why we think Adelson's on the list — and who else might show up.

· Deciding that their Ritalin-addled viewers' comedy needs are not being met by episodes of My Super Sweet Sixteen and Yo Momma, MTV is developing three American Pie/Ferris Bueller's Day Off-inspired movies to air on the network. [Variety]
· Richard "Shaft" Roundtree joins the cast of Speed Racer, hopes to avoid the vicious chimp attacks that have plagued other actors on the set. [THR]
· In an effort to keep its leadership intact for the world-ending, multi-guild strike about to wipe Hollywood off the face of the Earth, the DGA elects Michael Apted to a third term as President. [Variety]
· Despite having Sunday night's most watched show in Some Famous People Sing Nice Songs for the Dead Princess, NBC loses the primetime race to CBS. [THR]
· Shrek the Third takes the overseas box office crown with $69.6 million, but Transformers still managed to pull in $34.7 million. [Variety]

Backtracking from recent remarks that have been construed in the media as an endorsement of Rosie O'Donnell's candidacy to replace him on the The Price Is Right, retiring emcee Bob Barker today clarified what he meant when he said he had "no doubt" O'Donnell would make a good host, telling the AP, "I have not been asked for my opinion, nor have I expressed one. I think there are several candidates who could do the show, and Rosie is certainly one of them." (To his credit, the discreet Barker made no reference to a heated, closed-door meeting with Les Moonves earlier today in which the CBS Corp. head promised "to sew the balls back on every neutered dog and cat in town [himself] if [Barker] said another word about handing over the show to that [woman of below-average attractiveness].") O'Donnell has yet to publicly comment on this seeming blow to her chances of landing the job, but Defamer has exclusively obtained the ad she is placing-in tomorrow's Variety to address onetime idol Barker's unexpected withdrawal of support, one that echoes her earlier attempt at currying favor with the gameshow legend:

Airing tonight on CBS—your home for awards shows no one cares about!-Daytime Emmys producers were willing to try bold and unorthodox gimmicks to increase viewership, such as literally installing 200 hysterical soap fans on the stage alongside the presenters and winners. It's a prospect that doesn't sit well with some nominees:

Irascible late night fixture David Letterman can breathe a little more easily tonight—well, as easily as someone who just accidentally broke his nose playing with his three-year-old son can be expected to—as Montana officials have announced the capture of the escaped convict who once plotted to kidnap the very same little junior Letterman:

CBS CEO Les Moonves defends the honor of Katie Couric, calling remarks about her by Dan Rather "sexist." CBS, long known for its championing of female equality, broadcasts such empowering programs as "Two and a Half Men" and "The King of Queens." [AP]

"The mistake was to try to bring the 'Today' show ethos to the 'Evening News' and to dumb it down—tart it up in hopes of attracting a younger audience," says the former anchor. He also says that while Katie Couric is "prettier than a ten-dollar whore at a prostitute pageant" she lacks the "folksy, front-of-the-country-store gravitas of a distinguished journalist whose talents were seasoned under the white hot Texas sun." [NYDN]

For Jericho fans anxiously awaiting confirmation of the rumors that their grassroots campaign to save the series had actually worked, today comes official word from on high: This morning, a tiny, white flag poked out of the gargantuan mound of peanuts that currently stands where CBS headquarters used to be. It was waved weakly (there was precious little oxygen for the executives trapped beneath to breath), and was followed by a rolled-up sheet of CBS letterhead, which eventually landed with a bounce at the feet of the small army of chanting Jericho activists hoisting placards at its base. This is what it read:

Great news indeed for fans of CBS's Jericho: It seems burying a network in thousands of pounds of shelled peanuts delivered by suspiciously friendly-looking UPS workers is indeed an effective way of convincing shortsighted programming executives to reconsider their decisions to cancel low-rated nuclear war dramas. Reports TVGuide.com in a Jericho! Fan Resurrection! Exclusive!: