The documentary Pleasure For Sale, about legal prostitutes in Nevada brothels, seems like it might be pretty interesting! To keep up in this 2.0 world, premium cable channel Sundance took a page from HBO's playbook and put a teaser up on YouTube. That's where all the kids are at! Charming how they tagged it: "beautiful," "sexy," "hot," "lust." Catering to the wankers of the world, perhaps? After the jump: a working lady talks about how it feels to be confined to her bawdy house, in order to preserve the integrity of mandatory STD tests. Sexy hot indeed.

How did Gabriel Byrne become the TV therapist that, according to the Times' Thursday Styles at least, women lustfully obsess over and describe as an infatuating hunk with "youthful great biceps" and as someone they "could lick?" The slightly frumpy middle-aged actor, who is known as Dr. Paul Weston on the HBO series "In Treatment," spends virtually all his screen time sitting in a leather armchair, mostly mute, listening to his 30-year-old female patient prattle (deceptively!) on about her life and slowly moving his hands around. Maybe there's a drought of men who really listen, but apparently men are obsessed as well. Try and figure it out in the admitted captivating video after the jump, taken from the first episode of the series, in which his young woman patient talks about her love life:

We are growing concerned. After her career as an ABC nonjournalist fizzled, the formerly famous, generously-racked host of Rocketboom has been absent from her own blog since November 27. An "under development "show with HBO has gone nowhere. On January 23, Congdon Twittered that she was "writing monster blog post reflecting on ABC and talking about what's next." Amanda, 28 days is more time than even Scoble puts into a post. Just press Publish, ok?

Devotees of The Wire, myself among them, should be delighted by this hint given by one of the HBO drama's actors. Dominic West, who plays the increasingly manic police detective, Jimmy McNulty, tells the Los Angeles Times some of his colleagues are lobbying David Simon for a movie spinoff, and the show's creator is indeed considering a prequel. But here's the sacrilegious thought, which I can't suppress: the final season is not the triumph that fans had hoped for; and it's time for Simon to let go.

We love the Wire, even if the newsroom scenes are clumsy. But will former reporter and the HBO show's creator, David Simon, stop with the stream of essays? More importantly, will his fellow journalists, flattered though they are to be dramatized in the latest season of the show, stop running the pieces? Enough, already. [Baltimore Magazine]

HBO's The Wire will cure cancer, save your newspaper and stand for millennia as the highest recorded form of human culture ever, every publication in the world reported this week. Gawker commenters have called the Wire "the best show ever," "completely addict[ing]," "really that good" and "I fucking love this show." But apparently "getting people to watch it is like pulling teeth" — hence the video after the jump, providing four seasons of backstory in four minutes.

John Carroll (pictured speaking) became a newspaper martyr when in 2005 he resigned as editor of the Los Angeles Times rather than implement budget cuts demanded by the penny-pinching corporate overlords. But that wasn't enough for David Simon, creator of The Wire, the HBO drama about crime, politics and the media in Baltimore. Simon, a former reporter at the Baltimore Sun, still blames Carroll for "single-handedly destroying" the newspaper; he's the model for the bland manager of Simon's television show who urges staff to do "more with less". [Baltimore Sun via Fimoculous]

New York's media establishment may have decided that it loves the Wire. (Slate editor Jacob Weisberg was among the talking heads comparing the HBO drama to a great 19th century novel in the promo.) But David Simon, creator of the Baltimore-based show, doesn't return the regard. To be sure, Simon is generally bitter, holds a grudge and if you ask him what he thinks about Washingtonians, he'll say "fuck them." But the man reserves his real disdain for the East Coast Fantasy Island of New York. This is a 2006 link, but worth reprising. Baltimore blogger Eebmore transcribed a talk Simon gave at Eugene Lang College of the New School (famous alumni include: Ani DiFranco, Matisyahu, Sufjan Stevens and...Emily Gould!) and it's one of the best takedowns of New York we've heard. "You don't know shit anymore!" and then some, after the jump.

In Everything Bad is Good for You, Steven Berlin Johnson showed how television drama had become more complex over the decades, and made the contrarian claim that popular culture was making us smarter. The Wire, which returns tonight, ought to clinch the argument. The HBO drama, about crime and politics in Baltimore, is so convoluted that it takes several episodes, and sometimes several viewings, to make sense of the plot. And that's what's so engrossing: the show is a puzzle as much as it's entertainment. Bonus for media junkies: much of the action in this, the last season, takes place at the newsroom of the city's dying newspaper, the Baltimore Sun. One of the characters is a familiar figure in American publishing, the corporate executive who tells his dispirited reporters to do "less with more." 9pm, Sunday nights, HBO. Trailer after the jump.

Hey, former HBO CEO Chris Albrecht is going to make an honest woman out of the ladyfriend he choked in public earlier this year! That is great. We bet her mother is so proud. So, seriously? When a man kicks your ass in public, you do not MARRY HIM. Is this somehow unclear? Aww, he had a little drinking problem and you forgive him? Get a grip, chick! You're the REAL MESS. [Rush & Molloy via Radar]

I was hoping that former synergy-enthusiast Tina Brown's next job would be something really odd. Such as finding a way to monetize alligator-wrestling or inventing the next internet. (WHEN WILL we get the next internet? This one is so over!) But her "first-look deal to bring projects and story ideas to HBO" works too! We expect some shows like "The Tudors" meets "Hannah and her Sisters" set in Lagos. Very cool. Very, you know, chattery. Very high coastal appeal! The smart set! Quality eyeballs over quantity! Unexpected juxtapositions! "K Street" do-over!

The Sopranos creator David Chase, who once dismissed the series's fans as an unruly mob of closure-obsessed Tony-turncoats, has made the pilgrimage back to his old stomping grounds to testify in a federal lawsuit brought against him from a former judge who claims he was never fairly compensated for helping to create the now-legendary series:

· A rebounding Universal tries to shake off its recent jilting by Brad Pitt by climbing into bed with Russell Crowe, inviting the actor to partake of Pitt's State of Play sloppy seconds. [Variety]
· Even though it feels like there's been nothing good to watch on HBO since the end of The Sopranos (Flight of the Conchords notwithstanding), the network's subscriber numbers have actually risen slightly since the Best TV Show in The History Of The World went off the air. We suppose we have no chose but to credit (at least in part) all the fucking on Tell Me You Love Me for retaining viewer interest. [THR]

IAC and the Huffington Post brought fake news site 23/6 out of beta today. It only took them two years to come up with this? The site features political satire and targets people in the news with articles, videos and photos. If this sounds familiar, it's possibly because HBO and AOL already tried the same concept out with This Just In, to which the Wall Street Journal compares 23/6. The Journal does not note that This Just In shuttered in September. Another reason for pessimism? The site hasn't sold out its inventory for launch. It's currently running ads for BustedTees, another IAC company. Seriously, what kind of crappy blog displays ads from its parent company's network?

· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Can't Blame the Writers For the Current Idea Shortage Edition: Jennifer Connelly—an actress we'd pay $14 dollars to watch knitting a sweater or making peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches—will join monosyllabic, paparazzi-punishing superstar Keanu Reeves in Fox's remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still. [Variety]
· Big Love polygamist Jeanne Tripplehorn is on board for HBO's movie version of Grey Gardens, playing Jackie O opposite Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore's Big and Little Edies, respectively. THR]
· ABC's Cashmere Mafia might be the first primetime victim of the strike, as the network yanks the new series from its schedule before its originally planned November 27 debut. But good news for those craving Sex and the City-inspired entertainment: NBC hasn't yet abandoned nearly identical project Lipstick Jungle. [Variety]

Though it pains us to admit it, we fear our once-torrid relationship with HBO fuckumentary Tell Me You Love Me has gotten a little stale; where we once eagerly tuned in to freeze-frame each possible stunt-cock scene for evidence of the Truth or to uncover acts of penetration that were supposed to be obscured by a cinematographer's carefully cast shadows, there's no longer any joy in our Zapruderesque examination of the sex-riddles we're offered each week. Things have gotten so bad, in fact, that following last Sunday's episode, we couldn't even be bothered to wonder whether Ian Somerhalder's actual scrotum made a cameo, or if a contractual no-balls rider necessitated the use of a nuts-double. Maybe we'll bring it up with our surprisingly foxy, sexagenarian therapist in this week's session. Anyway, there's footage of the scene at the link following this item, for those whose workplaces allow the viewing of graphic depictions of attractive people screwing. [Fleshbot]

Our resident legal expert is our very own commenter, KarenUhOh. We call upon Karen to weigh in on the legal activities of the day—but don't forget that any legal opinions should not be constituted as advice; laws may vary state by state; in general, you should read at your own risk!

With HBO subscribers understandably less engrossed in the mysteries with which the network now presents them on Sunday nights—such as whether or not Tell Me You Love Me's Adam Scott employs an ejaculating stunt-cock or how much longer we have to wait before producers serve up that hotly anticipated sexagenarian-penetration scene—it's inevitable that viewers don't seem quite ready to end their speculation about what actually happened in The Sopranos final, endlessly discussed moment. Series creator David Chase, who once emerged from post-finale hiding to reassure us that he wasn't fucking with America's collective head with his creative choices, now returns (in the form of an interview in a new Sopranos book) to offer people a greater degree of closure. Reports the AP:

Hey, you know what? Bill Maher would make an awesome high school principal! (A mouthy, obscene and lecherous one, but still.) During Friday's live broadcast of his HBO show, "Real Time With Bill Maher," (a show responsible for revealing the comedic political genius of regular guest Ben Affleck—no, seriously), Maher took care of business when his crack security team proved not to be. Maher tried to make light of a heckling 9/11 conspiracy theorist working the room: Chris Matthews, Joel Stein and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson sat quietly by. (Who knew Matthews was such a pussy? Stein, yeah, but Matthews?) Heckler #1 got tossed by Maher but still had some friends in the audience—Maher's best line came when he got back to the stage to yet more shouting. "I'll kick your ass outta here too! Hey! This isn't the Iowa caucus, okay? it's not a debate, it's a debate between us; you're in the audience. Audience comes from the Latin, to listen."