If you've ever felt that the awkward confrontations in which Larry David invariably finds himself during the average episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm sometimes seem like the product of profound mental illness rather than improvisational comedic invention, the work of a clinical psychology student noted in this week's New Yorker might finally convince you that David's TV character might have deeper problems than merely being an impatient, fussy jerk. When the student showed episodes of Curb to his schizophrenic patients, they quickly recognized Larry's socially dysfunctional behavior:

"Whatever happened to Amanda Congdon's HBO deal?" asks Broadcasting and Cable today. Last November, the videoblogging web star, whose contract with ABC News was not renewed, said that her HBO project was "going to be comedy, and I know it's going to be cross-platform." But it's almost a year later, and B&C suggests that the deal will shortly expire. Well that's good—Amanda might have overextended her mindshare with so much cross-platforming vertical integration and new media brand synergy interaction! Also: Paradigm shift!

While we've previously confessed that we've been watching fucking-crazed HBO melodrama Tell Me You Love just to see the different sexual positions into which the producers will twist their neurotic, anatomically correct mannequins each week, there are some viewers who are so affected by the show's profound insights into the whiny-human condition that they're moved to examine their own dysfunctional relationships. ABC News sought out some horny yuppies who recognize themselves in Tell Me's characters, asking them to elaborate on the complex feelings the series stirs up:

It had to happen eventually. According to Variety this week, HBO snapped up the film rights to a book published last month about the Duke rape case saga, so we'll all be lucky enough to relive the "dynamics of racism and class issues that made the case a national story." Oh, super.

· Oh, Johnny Drama, you're so much better than this: Kevin Dillon will star in the 300 spoof National Lampoon's 301: The Legend of Awesomest Maximus Wallace Leonidas. Will someone please book him for some personal appearances and save him from this kind of strike-insurance slumming? [Variety]
· Cavemen's overhauled series premiere "performed OK" in the Tuesday night Nielsens, while House lead Fox to victory in primetime. [THR]
· Natalie Portman joins the cast of the remake of the Danish love-triangle drama Brothers, in which she'll play the sister-in-law boinked by dreamy-eyed homewrecker Jake Gyllenhaal while sleepy-eyed soldier Tobey Maguire is off fighting in Afghanistan. [Variety]

After previously teasing us with the kind of reconstructed-hip-shattering, hot sexagenarian action we haven't seen on premium cable since we caught a late-night Cinemax presentation of Emanuelle: Retirement Community Seductress back in college, the producers of Tell Me You Love Me threw us an oddly prudish curveball last night, dramatizing nothing more racy than a chef-on-chef sex act probably not graphic enough to be pixelated by a Fox Hell's Kitchen censor, making us feel we'd completely wasted the hour we spent (we didn't even TiVo through all the tiresome yapping) looking for further evidence of ejaculating-prothesis use or glimpses of envelope-pushing penetration. But we did spend some time reading yesterday's NY Times piece about the ongoing pornification of television and film, in which the director of a competing sex-positive pay-TV entertainment offered a dissenting opinion on how graphic the screwing needs to be to achieve fucking-verisimilitude:

The "save John From Cincinnati ad" taken out in today's THR is probably a case of too little, too late as the quickly aborted surfing drama's sets have been struck, its cast scattered, and its creator already tasked with dreaming up a new world in which his characters can communicate in a language primarily comprised of expletives. But if we've learned anything from the Jericho's successful Nuts! campaign, it's that the only way that fans can have their voices heard is by annoying TV executives with non-stop deliveries to their places of business, hoping that the constant presence of handtruck-pushing men in brown shorts in their offices wears down their defenses.

We have a shameful confession to make: Despite the fact that we find the show's characters universally whiny and their monotonously dysfunctional relationships anything but compelling, we've fallen into HBO's clever trap, tuning in to all three of new drama Tell Me You Love Me's episodes just to see how far the show can push the graphic-fucking envelope before the entire network is consigned to the pay-per-view Hot Zone for its transgressions against premium-cable decency standards.

Truth be told, we were never big fans of the Sex and the City TV show, as the dramatization of high-end shoe-shopping and the sex lives of aging cougar nymphomaniacs didn't hold much interest for us. Today, however, we're inexplicably excited about the forthcoming feature adaptation of the beloved HBO series, as New Line has issued a press release celebrating the movie's first day of production, one that includes this first-ever photo from the set to further commemorate this special occasion.

· CBS has quietly set up preview screenings of Kid Nation at elementary schools in major markets for students, parents, and teachers, where families can come together and discuss the exciting child-labor-law issues raised by the controversial new series, as well as receive assurances from the network that no children were eaten by bears during the show's production, even though that unlikely eventuality was covered by that now-infamous waiver. [Variety]
· HBO Films greenlights a feature version of Grey Gardens, the 1975 crazy-cat-lady documentary that has also recently spawned a crazy-cat-lady Broadway musical, and which will star Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. [THR]
· In an onscreen pairing that will result in a dramatic showdown between the dreamiest and the sleepiest sets of blue eyes in all of Young Hollywood, Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire are in negotiations to join Brothers, director Jim Sheridan's remake of a Danish-language war drama. Our prediction: after their first shared scene, Maguire locks himself in his trailer, ashamed that his orbs will never sparkle like Gyllenhaal's. [Variety]
· Star Trek's JJ Abrams chooses Zoe Saldana as the new Uhura. [THR]
· Huzzah! The Fall TV season is here! And while we didn't watch the solidly rated premiere of Fox's K-ville last night, it's nice to know that we have finally something to neglect besides shows about remembering karaoke lyrics. [Variety]

Endeavor's Ari Emanuel, so publicly appalled by the media's digging up of 16-year-old dirt on buddy Chris Albrecht after his much-publicized Vegas domestic violence arrest, played matchmaker in the meeting that led to Albrecht's new gig at IMG. Also, Albrecht's received the Sarah Jessica Parker Seal of "I'd Work With Him Again" Approval: "It's a town of second, third and fourth chances... I would never be reluctant to work with him again. Maybe I'm being Pollyanna-ish, but people want to work with people who have been successful." [NY Times]

On Sunday night, HBO debuted new drama Tell Me You Love Me, the flagship show in a post-Sopranos lineup the suddenly hit-deficient network is promoting under its unwieldy new slogan, "It's Not TV, It's TV With Tons of Graphic Fucking. Like, a LOT of Fucking. Hey, Did We Just Show You That Guy's Balls? You Bet We Did."

As is their custom in the run-up to various awards ceremonies, Newsweek has once again assembled a panel of nominees to discuss issues important to the modern kudos-hopeful, allowing their guests a rare chance to gather together to discuss their craft and make the occasional comment about the absurdity of introducing the notion of competition into their collaborative art form. In their new Emmy Roundtable piece, they've hoarded Masi Oka of Heroes, Entourage's Jeremy Piven, Brothers & Sisters' Sally Field, and Ugly Betty's America Ferrera for the chat, and it didn't take long for Piven, last year's Best Supporting Actor winner for his portrayal of lovable, Gaysian-haranguing agent Ari Gold, to express his frustration over not having more input into creative decisions that might result in more screentime:

· Maybe we spoke too soon about Vanessa Hudgens' fans forgiving her for those nudie pics.
· Mercifully, new graphic-fucking-positive HBO drama Tell Me You Love Me will go easy on the septuagenarian ugly-bumping: "Explicit scenes of young, lithe bodies having it in many places and in all manners, including solo, are plentiful in the first few episodes. Yet when it comes to a white-haired, elderly couple, the camera looks away, sparing viewers the shock of seeing sagging bellies and wrinkled limbs in the throes of carnal bliss."
· Jodie Foster says that The Brave One is more than just Death Wish. It's Death Wish with a chick.
· Aliens are keeping an eye on the president.
· Tonight's your last chance to see the Golden Girls go wild.

The Internet just imploded: HBO, television's supposed savior, has paid "six figures" for the rights to a Second Life "documentary" titled "My Second Life: The Video Diaries of Molotov Alva." For the uninitiated, machinima, short films recorded entirely within the game world, is a rather popular genre among the videogaming set and usually parodies of the originating property.

Actor Austin Nichols, who recently rose to prominence playing the titular, gibberish-talking drifter in HBO's recently canceled spiritual surfing allegory (we think?) John From Cincinnati, was stopped early this morning on suspicion of driving under the influence near his family's vacation home in Michigan. From the Jackson Citizen Patriot report:

It seemed inevitable that the GLAAD-led protest of former Sopranos star Joseph "Gay Vito" Gannascoli's endorsement of the billiards implement used to rape and murder his leather-loving TV character would quickly lead to the removal of the item from his "To Die For" line of merchandise (and its establishment as an instant collectors' item—the cues should be hitting eBay any minute). Indeed, TV Week reports that the manufacturer has already yanked it from their website and that the actor has issued the necessary mea culpa:

· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Tiny People Injected Into the Sickly Body Of Originality Edition: Roland Emmerich will direct a remake of Fantastic Voyage for 20th Century Fox. [Variety]
· Production has temporarily stopped on 24 so that the hit show's writers have enough time to adequately dramatize every apocalyptic scenario that would probably come to pass if a Hillary Clintonesque president ever assumed our highest office. [THR]
· Former Daily Show/Colbert Report EP Ben Karlin explains the just-announced, combined film/television deal he signed with a certain premium cable outlet: "When my reps asked me what I wanted to do next, I said firmly, 'not TV.' They said, 'HBO.' I had to admit, they had me there." [Variety]
· ABC's new NASCAR in Prime tanks its premiere, probably because the show clearly belongs on Fox. [THR]
· Jerry Bruckheimer informs CBS that it must buy his drama pilot about a "globetrotting team of freelance treasure hunters" or he will withdraw every one of the 45 weekly hours of programming he generates for them; the network, of course, happily complies, remarking about how much they always wanted a more expensive, scripted version of The Amazing Race. [Variety]

Bad news today for fans of foul-mouthed patriarchs of dysfunctional surfing dynastys who suddenly find themselves periodically levitating upon the arrival of a simple, Christlike drifter in their lives: HBO has canceled John from Cincinnati, the network's baffling first attempt at filling the void left by The Sopranos. Devotees of series creator David Milch will be happy to learn that HBO is trying to extend its development deal with the writer, whom they hope will have more luck transplanting the relentless, operatic profanity of previous hit Deadwood to another series, possibly one set in a group home for sufferers of Tourette's Syndrome.

With his role on the most important TV drama in the history of the medium wrapped and nothing to look forward to but months of frustrating phonecalls in which his agents begs him to do "just one more leather daddy mobster part, for old time's sake. Ya gotta eat!," one can hardly blame former Sopranos star Joseph "Gay Vito" Gannascoli for trying to pick up some money on the side by capitalizing on his iconic character. GLAAD, however, isn't too happy about a product he's chosen to endorse: the "Cue To Die For" pool stick, a must-have memento for any fan who wants to relive Vito's fatal bludgeoning and sodomy each time he chalks up before a tough shot. Reports TV Week: