Just in time for tonight's series premiere of Shark, CBS's new lawyer drama starring James Woods as a "charismatic, supremely self-confident defense attorney who, after a shocking outcome in one of his cases and a personal epiphany, brings his cutthroat tactics to the prosecutor's office," THR, ESQ invites an actual veteran of the L.A. district attorney's office to review how faithfully the show depicts the practice of the law:

After months of hype declaring prodigal showrunner Aaron Sorkin as perpetually fourth-place network NBC's Nielsen Messiah, the (preliminary) ratings numbers for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip's breathlessly anticipated premiere are finally in. And? While NBC seems to have edged out longtime tormentor CBS for first place in both overall viewers and the coveted™ 18-49 demographic, the Peacock's savior was proven to be the bald-pated, OCD-riddled ringmaster of their lowbrow, people-shouting-at-briefcases circus, not their troubled, celebrated dialogue-stylist. Reports Zap2it.com:

Pity pretty Campbell Brown: In another EXCLUSIVE, Radar reports that the perky hostess of Weekend Today was denied a shot at the Couric chair "on account of her youth, looks, and, especially, her lack of kids." Whether this revelation is a sneaky attempt to damage Brown's value as a possible host of CBS' Early Show or is merely one more tragic case of the beautiful being denied what's rightly theirs because of their looks, it provides us the opportunity to once again share this video, which we think makes the best case as to why she didn't get the gig.

• LAT editor sticks it to The Man; refuses to make cuts requested by Tribune overlords. [NYT]
• Member of CBS Evening News' elderly demographic likes Katie Couric. [AP]
• City claims recycling has declined because no one buys newspapers anymore, but that fails to explain where people are putting the eight million Metros shoved at them as they enter the subway. [NYS]
• Dick-licking victim Mandy Stadtmiller wins "Funniest Reporter in New York" contest. The jokes, they write themselves. Or at least they're gonna have to for this one, because we've got nothing. [NY1]

Match the following Survivor: Cook Islands tribes to the corresponding statements made by one of their members on last night's premiere:

• Katie Couric's first week is accompanied by her first blog, a rambling, 10000-word treatment on the importance of being perky, complete with Karen Carpenter lyrics. Congrats, Katie. You're really done something. [Couric & Co.]
• Kazakhastan is now denying that Borat will be a topic during meetings with the U.S. This is just fantastic, isn't it? An international debate on whether or not a fictional character will be discussed at a diplomatic summit. No wonder the terrorists hate us. [The Blotter]
• If JK Rowling has to give up the manuscript for the final Harry Potter book, then the terrorists really have won. [BBC]
• Fashion Week is all about luxurious balls. [Coutorture]
• Lydia Hearst fashion porn: scary, and yet we can't look away. [Bastardly]
• Path to 9/11 producers depict American Airways personnel cheerfully letting Mohammad Atta on the plane; it was actually cheerful US Airways personnel who did so, and it's going to cost ABC some advertising dollars. [Consumerist]
• Jay McInerney has yet to master the art of walking while tipsy. You'd think, but you'd be wrong. [Belle in the Big Apple]
• Sure is hard to make friends in this town. [NYP]
• Watching a blogger get his first death threat is like watching your child take his first steps. He's not our baby, but we're still proud of him. [Goldenfiddle]
• Read the New Yorker and live to be 102. Yay, ancient people! Yay, Conde Nast! [EmDashes]
• Critics still really, RILLY love The Wire. [Test Pattern]
• Drinking = money. No, really. Rejoice! [AP]

· Survivor: Race Wars producer Mark Burnett options the rights to a series of children's fantasy books similar in tone to Harry Potter, but instead of the children assigned to Gryffindor and Slytherin houses, they're segregated accorded to—on second thought, we can't bring ourselves to finish this joke. [Variety]
· As we mentioned before, Jim Carrey kissed UTA goodbye, and is pointing himself towards a CAA tomorrow. [Variety]
· Fox head Tom Rothman brags to the Merrill Lynch Media and Entertainment Conference about his company's "fiscal discipline," except where "creative ambition" is concerned. To illustrate his point, he then runs a 27-minute, behind-the-scenes featurette entitled, "'Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties': From Dream To Screen Reality." [Variety]
· The creator of Medium sells a pilot to CBS called The Meant to Be's, about a dead woman who, "in order to 'pass over,' ... must return to Earth and help people improve their lives." No word yet on which generously beracked actresses are on the shortlist to star. [THR]
· The producers of Invincible, a movie about football, and The Rock, star of football movie Gridiron Gang, are collaborating on The Game Plan, Hollywood's first major attempt at dramatizing the competitive world of professional miniature golf. Just kidding—it's another football movie. [THR]

• Pinch Sulzberger and cousin Michael Golden hope that a $4 million employee bribe might help them keep their jobs for a little while longer. [NYO]
• Jeff Koyen likes the new Times Reader software. Jeff Jarvis does not. If you're still awake after reading those sentences, send us over some of whatever you're on. [Wired]
• CBS' Les Moonves wants to buy "the next YouTube." Probably a savvy move to wait until the current one gets sued out of existence. [Reuters]
• We sort of feel like everyone who watches Nancy Grace should kill themselves; can you guess what we think about her guests? [BG]
• When a guy cites the phenomenally successful "Times Select" model as an example of "where the industry will have to go," it's probably a good idea to discount the rest of what he says as well. [Barnako]

• Whitney Houston files for divorce from her husband Bobby Brown, citing irreconciable differences over crack consumption and constipation relief. [Access Hollywood]
• Atoosa Rubenstein, editor of Seventeen and beautiful orchid lady, wears sunglasses because she's an urban warrior. You know, like Mel Gibson in Mad Max. Mel, Atoosa. Atoosa, Mel. [Slate]
• On 9/11, tragedy strikes Fashion Week as a Proenza Schouler mannequin falls. Don't bother with the tower metaphor, please. [Yahoo]
• You just know this guy is fucking Patrick McDonald [NYM]
• Meet CBS' new "wireless hostess," who will guide you through the CBS digital environment and, once you're done with that, help you rub one out. [TV.com]
• Anna Nicole Smith's son definitely did not die of a heart attack, but the coroner's going to cocktease this one as much as possible. [TMZ]
• W. schedules meeting to discuss crisis in Darfur and Borat threat. [Daily Mail]
• In other news from yesterday's primary, State Senator Ada Smith appears to have lost her bid for re-election. We'd stay out of Starbucks for the next couple weeks. [NYT]
• Media "would like a do-over" on its WMD reporting. Our dead and limbless soldiers presumably feel the same way. [On the Media]
• Paris Hilton skanks down the Heatherette runway. Not content to assault just your eyes, she did so to her own music, too. [Animal]

At yesterday's big, overblown Apple press conference, Steve Jobs unveiled a magical box that allows people to stream their iTunes purchases from their computer to their television. [Variety]
Producers of the CGI-animated version of Horton Hears a Who will lock Jim Carrey in a sound booth, press record on the console, and return three days later to see what improvisational magic he's added to the shredded script pages littering the floor of the studio. [THR]
At a Hollywood Radio & TV Society luncheon, an atypically diplomatic Les Moonves reserved judgment on ABC's decision to air its controversial Path to 9/11 miniseries, and declined to publicly gloat over Tom Freston's firing from Viacom, "because I'll only get myself in trouble." We're sure he's just feeling a little bit under the weather and will return to his old, rival-taunting self at the next media conference. [Variety]
America still hasn't satisfied its appetite for washed-up celebrities tripping over professional dancers, as the season premiere of Dancing with the Stars leads ABC to an overall ratings victory. [THR]
Perhaps feeling that the unbearably perky Katie Couric is not suited to the task of delivering them sad news, channel-switching viewers drop her CBS telecast to third place on 9/11. [Variety]

Mr. Moonves is too savvy a political player to show even a hint of schadenfreude over the ouster of Mr. Freston.

Had Jeff Probst stuck to the Survivor script of outlining the rules for fire-starting contests and overseeing tribal counsels, he probably would have gone down as one of reality TV's more likable and competent hosts. But then the series took a forty-five-degree turn into eugenics territory, and made the even arguably dumber decision to allow Probst to defend the format to the media. What followed were a series of startling statements that revealed the host to be somewhat of a numbskull, such as the epiphany he recently shared with the Washington Post that not all Asians are exactly the same:

• Maybe we just love the image too much, but when we see Paris Hilton in handcuffs, we have to think she's enjoying herself. Hell, just another romantic night for the lady. [TMZ]
• Ellen: What's the deal with blogs? [BWE]
• Is CBS looking to team Campbell Brown and Anderson Cooper as co-hosts for The Early Show? Just some advice to the network brass: if you put those two in captivity, they're not gonna mate. [Fox411]
• Blogosphere alum and Vanity Fair online editor Andrew Hearst hits the print edition, makes magazine funny. [VF]
• The majority owners of celeb-hive nightspot Butter are suing co-owner Scott Sartiano for using club profits to further his lavish lifestyle. Well, duh. [NYP]
• Thanks to the Johnny Walker Blue Label Index, you can now determine exactly how much you're being ripped off by chic watering holes. [Eater]
• Making Park Slope mommies look downright appealing. [CookieAssortment]
• We know she's just lifting her voice towards the heavens or whatever, but Dawn Eden should not be allowed to sing. Or, at the very least, she should not be allowed to record herself singing. C'mon, girl, have some shame. God likes 'em modest. [Feministing]

· If you're not currently in Toronto, you probably don't care too much about what's expected to happen at the film festival, but here's an overview anyway. Fingers crossed that J. Lo and her husband (Enrique something, right?) sell their movie. [Variety]
David Letterman's romance with CBS snugglebunny Les Moonves is more torrid than ever, prompting Letterman to sign on for four more years at his newfound soulmate's network. [THR]
As glowingly press-released yesterday, Sony's Amy Pascal was given a new title and had her contract extended well through the release of Stealth III, the story of a Roomba who gains malevolent sentience when struck by a power surge from a faulty wall outlet. [Variety]
MIA onetime TV stars Dana Kim Delaney and Willie Garson get new gigs, keeping them out of SAG/AFTRA's vaunted food stamps program for the time being. [THR]
Wall Street expresses its sadness over Tom Freston's firing by dropping its stock price a combined 7.6 percent over the last two days. Will its heartache ever end? [Variety]

Amid a flurry of media criticism, and with corporate sponsors dropping like so many swatted tsetse flies, reality TV wunderkind producer Mark Burnett finds himself forced to justify his decision to pit race against race on the new season of Survivor. Burnett has finally spoken up in defense of his humanitarian vision, through the unlikely (and mostly unread outside of the TV business) forum of the letters section of Cynthia Turner's Cynopsis. An excerpt:

· Apple and Amazon prepare for their cyberspace deathmatch in the movie downloading space. Pretend to care about where you will eventually download your copy of Talladega Nights. [Variety]
Katie Couric's maiden CBS Evening News broadcast delivers news timeslot ratings the likes of which haven't been seen since 1998. Plans are currently underway to have Couric inserted into all of the network's programming until the Nielsen surge dissipates. [THR]
Variety gives a little background on new Viacommies Philippe Dauman and Thomas Dooley so that we can start thinking of them as individuals, not just the faceless Redstone-puppets who replaced Tom Freston. [Variety]
Rebecca DeMornay gets a chance at HBO-assisted career rehabilitation (let's let Kudrow's failed pay-cable comeback fade from memory for a moment) by signing up for David Milch's new show, John from Cincinnati. [THR]
The Mask co-stars Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz will join up in the romantic comedy A Little Game, at least until Focus Features shuts down the project as the costs of filming Carrey's signature 100-takes-of-improv scenes get out of hand, claiming some kind of symbolic stand against escalating star salaries. [Variety]

Earlier: Suri: The Photo You Won't See in 'Vanity Fair', More Suri: "This Is Definitely Tom's Child"

One of these men just found out he's dead, and it's not the one you'd think from the photo. Tom Freston (left), the former president and CEO of Viacom — and one of the founding forces of MTV and all its associated cash cows — got his walking papers this weekend from principle shareholding nosferatu Sumner Redstone (right). Sure, the official line from Viacom has Freston resigning rather than getting ankled, though they don't even bother with the politely thin pretense of "to pursue other opportunities." After Redstone split Viacom and its host of entertainment subsidiaries (MTV, Paramount, etc.) away from CBS, Freston was put in charge of Viacom, with mogul Les Moonves heading up CBS. This precipitated a bizarrely sourceless, ongoing spat between Moonves and Freston, seeming to originate purely in Moonves's egomania and rumored lust for Paramount. Was it this rivalry that led to Freston's defenestration, or something else? Something ... stupider?

It's not just General Motors who have withdrawn their advertising from Survivor: Cook Islands: Major corporations like Coca-Cola, Home Depot and Campbell's Soup have also opted not to sponsor CBS' foray into competitive ethno-Darwinism. And while a Campbell's spokesperson insists the decision was made "back during the upfront," we imagine the show's race vs. race premise certainly helped cement their decision; after all, familiar, comfy sentiments such as "Mmm mm good," and "You Can Do It. We Can Help," become that much harder to sell when immediately following a contestant's meanspirited implorations to, "Paddle harder! The Chinamen are gaining on us!" But not everyone has shown a reluctancy to the series' concept: Since the announcement, white-supremacist internet boards have been ablaze with excited chatter about what the series could do for their cause. From TV Week: