Several exciting new Media Christmas developments!

• Bob Woodward's in truh-ble. [NYT]
• WP's Walter Pincus set to go the way of Judith Miller in the Wen Ho Lee case. Except without the everyone-hates-him-at-the-end part. [WP]
• Need your dose of softcore porn more frequently than once a month? It's looking like Keith Blanchard's prototype for a weekly lad book might see life at Bauer. And thank God for that. [WWD]
• William T. Vollman, Joan Didion win National Book Awards. [USAT]
• Hotshot founders of Penguin's Riverhead imprint bolt for Random's Doubleday Broadway group and a new, yet-to-be-named imprint. [NYP]
• The lucky winner of that fundraising lunch with Rupert Murdoch? Learning Annex chief Bill Zanker. Be you're even happier now that you overpaid for that mediocre lecture. [Guardian]
• HBO still confident it owns Sunday night, Lisa Kudrow's dreadful Comeback notwithstanding. [NYT]
• Speaking at the University of Texas, Maureen Dowd — who, apparently, has a new book out — speculates that Judy Miller will end up with a Fox News talkshow. [Daily Texan]
• Bad things often happen to Time Persons of the Year. [The Media Mob/NYO]

• Are Men Necessary? is "a very odd, occasionally entertaining mish-mash of politics and sex, biology and Cosmopolitan-ology, gravity and wit, insight and carelessness." We don't care what it is; we'd just like to stop hearing about it. [NYO]
• And Maureen should go away for a while, too. [MW]
• Republican senators want another investigation of a leak to reporters. You know, because the last one worked out so well for their party. [WP]
• Anna Wintour may or may not be out to kill The Devil Wears Prada film. [Radar]
• Teen People lands racist teenie-boppers Prussian Blue, who apprently think — wrongly — they'll be getting editorial control. Isn't it fun to pull one over on Nazis? [NYP]
• Memogate producer Mary Mapes was right and everyone else was wrong, insists Memogate producer Mary Mapes. [WP]
• Less demand than expected for lunch with Rupert Murdoch. Which is fine news indeed. [Guardian]
• HBO documentary chief likes both highbrow and porn, and, likely, she'll soon snag Ted Koppel. [NYP]
• Apparently, Esquire had cool covers in the sixties. [MB]
• Meet Judy Miller without traveling to Sag Harbor — only $375! [HuffPost]
• As a kid, New Yorker essayist Adam Gopnik used to sneak out after bedtime — to read. Which is somehow unsurprising. [S.F. Chronicle]
• 135K paid users have signed up for TimesSelect. As if you can't get more than enough Maureen for free these days. [E&P]
• Anderson Cooper does the self-deprecating shtick well, too. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
• Prediction: New ABC anchors will be Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff. Peter, however, would have wanted Charlie Gibson. [Newsday]
• Because one is never enough, negotiations continue at the Times continue over another fired reporter. [Media Mob/NYO]
• No one wants to read TV Guide offshoot Inside TV. [WWD]

· M. Night Shyamalan tells exhibitors at the ShowEast conference that collapsing traditional distribution windows is "the worst idea I have ever heard. Then, in a stunning coda that reversed everything his audience thought to be true, he revealed that they were in fact at ShoWest all along. [Variety]
· Sam Mendes acceptance speech for his director of the year award at the Hollywood Film Festival is the height of humility and graciousness: "I'm very fond of giving awards to movies you've never seen. To those of you who've seen the movie, thank you very much. To those of you who haven't it's perfect." [Variety]
· Sony slips into the red, largely in part to well-deservedly ignored crapola like Stealth. Amy Pascal stands soaked in the metaphorical rain, praying a Spidey-in-shining-spandex will lower himself to her upside-down and slip her the profitable tongue. [Variety]
· Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball sets up another drama at HBO based on Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire series of novels, about a world where vampires and humans co-exist. Gee, yet another entertainment industry related show on HBO. Quel surprise. [Variety]
· Lifetime's Strong Medicine kicks the bucket. Rick Schroder thinks about next steps, starting with further shortening his name to Ri.' [THR]

· Edward Norton and Brad Pitt will produce a 10-part miniseries for HBO and National Geographic based on a Stephen Ambrose book on Lewis and Clark. Norton will direct at least one of the episodes, with Brad Pitt set to pretend he'd heard of Lewis and Clark before he was presented with the project. [Variety]
· 20th Century Fox TV signs Antoine Fuqua to an exclusive television directing deal, hoping that the director can translate some of the magic of King Arthur and the last half-hour of Training Day to the small screen. [THR]
· CBS wins a "fierce bidding war" for the sitcom Class, about a "group of eight twentysomethings who were all in the same third-grade class 20 years ago. Most of the group doesn't keep in touch or even remember one another. They're brought together again by happenstance when one of them throws a surprise anniversary party for his girlfriend — whom he met in the third grade." High concept enough for you? No? Bam: There's "no one living room where they gather." Welcome to the age of the multiple-couch sitcom. [Variety]
· Not to put too fine a point on it, but ABC continues to make all Sunday night competition its bitch. [THR]
· Gwyneth Paltrow will star in The Good Night, a film directed by her brother and shooting mostly in London, mercifully keeping the Bride of Coldplay away from America for a little while longer. [Variety]

· Preparing for the day that a lucky photographer captures him changing into a bathing suit and sells the resulting photographic evidence of his shrunken testes to the Enquirer, Governor Schwarzenegger signs a bill that triples the amount of damages a celebrity can sue a photographer for and holds their employers responsible as well. [Variety]
· ABC and Kelsey Grammer's Grammnet Productions are developing a sitcom for American Idol also-ran Constantine Maroulis, representing ABC's best chance to ruin the momentum it's gained over the past season. Credit Maroulis' canny agent with turning down ABC's first offer of a short guest stint as Eva Longoria's hairdresser. [THR]
· Var confirms CAA's poaching of UTA partner Dan Aloni and many of his top-shelf director clients, but UTA saves a shred of dignity by retaining Judd Apatow. [Variety]
· The WB forces its comedy and alternative departments to mate, hoping the that evil, inbred offspring will produce funnier reality shows and non-traditional sitcoms. [THR]
· UPN stops production of Sex, Love and Secrets after just one aired episode, but it seems unclear on how many of the seven shows they've already shot will air. Our completely wild guess is one more, just to observe the early-cancellation benchmark set by Fox's Head Cases. [Variety]
· HBO continues to enable Bob Saget's comeback. After a whore-banging turn on Entourage last season, they're giving him his own show to co-write, direct, and star in, an R-rated remake of The Courtship of Eddie's Father. The best part: Sags will play a gynecologist. [Variety]

· Sony Pictures Classics unofficially begins the Oscar season by sending out screeners of Junebug five months before the awards ceremony, ensuring that their little film will be forgotten long before any ballots are mailed. Meanwhile, no one seems to want to use Cinea's magic antipiracy DVD players. [Variety]
· NBC wins a bidding war with ABC over Victor Fresco's high-concept sitcom "centering on a twentysomething average Joe whose world is turned upside down when he realizes that his life is being driven by supernatural forces representing good and evil." Sounds considerably more interesting than Life on a Stick, Fresco's last show, which was high-concept only in that it seemed designed to invite immediate cancellation. But a new, lucrative deal always takes the sting out of a quick hook, doesn't it? [THR]
· Renee Zellweger, taking a break from the exhausting work of entering into and quickly annulling marriages with gay-seeming country music stars, is in talks to crinkle up her face in Miss Potter, the story of writer Beatrix Potter. [Variety]
· Fox and NBC get nutty with early series pick-ups, ordering more episodes of Prison Break, American Dad, and The Office. [THR]
· HBO gives a script commitment to the Owen "The Butterscotch Stallion" Wilson, Larry Charles, and Rick Rubin (Rick Rubin? Wha?) comedy project Bert & Dickie, about an "odd-couple standup comedy team that can't ever manage to come out on top — personally or professionally." Nice to see The Stallion finally conquer the small screen, even if he's just writing. [Variety]
· Kate Winslet is in final negotiations to give Cameron Diaz some much-needed acting lessons. [THR]

· HBO won't pick up another season of The Comeback, mercifully euthanizing the eternally suffering fictional actress Valerie Cherish and sending real-life counterpart Lisa Kudrow to the unemployment line. Goodbye, Valerie, you're going to a better place, one where Paulie G can't abuse you and you'll no longer have dog poop in your hair. [Variety]
· Shitergy update, pigskin edition: NBC plans to adapt corporate sibling Universal's Friday Night Lights into a television series, planned to arrive at the—here it comes—same time that the NFL returns to their network. [Variety]
· Brad Garrett wasn't talking shit when he joked about a Raymond spinoff at the Emmys, as talks for his own show are underway. [THR]
· The Emmys were up 30 percent in the 18-49 demo over a year ago, which isn't really saying much. The TV Academy should move them to NBC and finally finish them off. [Variety]
· Tom Sizemore signs on to develop a reality show about his life. Expect the Super Sizemore project to fulfill the suicidal promise reneged on by Breaking Bonaduce. [THR]

· Hollywood Out of Ideas, All-Worlds Edition: Paramount brings in Steven Spielberg, the world's leading expert on expensive remakes with "Worlds" in the title and movies dealing with deadly threats from outer space, as producer of the re-do of 1951's When Worlds Collide. [Variety]
· The world's leading expert on bad movies involving CGI critters and ancient curses, Stephen "The Mummy" Sommers, steps out of the above-mentioned When Worlds Collide project to take over Fox's Night at the Museum, about "a goodhearted but bumbling security guard at the Museum of Natural History who accidentally trips an ancient curse that causes the animals and insects on display to come to life, wreaking havoc in the area." [THR]
· Scott Rudin, Hollywood's unofficial Friend of Literature, puts up his own money [Ed.note—Gasp!] to acquire the rights to soon-to-be-released Benjamin Kunkel (for blog-lit nerds: he's the N+1 guy, there is hope!) novel Indecision. [Variety]
· HBO orders comedy pilot from Lydia Dean Pilcher, about thirty-something Manhattan women juggling their families and careers, but otherwise bears no resemblance whatsoever to Sex and the City. [THR]
· The Island continues to become somewhat less of a disaster overseas, winning a third straight weekend at the foreign box office and crossing the $100 million mark. [Variety]

Oh, Viriginia Heffernan. Why can't we all be as smart as you?

Color us shocked.

· Var: "Rupert Murdoch is really into the internet." Totally! Now that he's acquired MySpace, Murdoch is looking to continue moving boldly into the internet space. May we recommend an immediate purchase of StuffOnMyCat.com? [Variety]
· Production company Roaring Entertainment is suing ABC, Simon Cowell, and Freemantle Media claiming that their Million Dollar Idea was stolen. Actually, it should be a "tens of millions of dollars idea," since that's what the lawsuit is seeking in damages. [THR]
· Hey Dreamworks SpielbergKatzenbergGeffen, in your face! Sort-of stand-alone studio (did they have to mention that News Corp owns a chunk?) Regency Enterprises is thriving while you're hawking your wares to NBC Universal. [Variety]
· The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences gives ABC president Steve McPherson its inaugural "televisionary" award for his work to "advance the cause of diversity in the industry." We hope he doesn't bring Jim Belushi to the awards ceremony. No one wants an "incident." [THR]
· It's nice to see that Herbie: Fully Loaded director Angela Robinson wasn't so scarred by her experience with Linday Lohan that she quit the business. The Lohan-survivor will co-write and direct chick-becomes-cyborg action comedy Genbot for New Line. [Variety]
· There is much rejoicing at the Bing: HBO may tack on an additional 10 episodes to the end of The Sopranos' upcoming, final season. [THR

For six incredible seasons, you laughed, cried, and explained away a troubling tendency towards promiscuity along with the glamorous gals of Sex and the City. Don't think for a second that HBO can't put a price on those fond memories, as the network knows it can bleed the hopelessly devoted faithful by issuing a $300 box set, Sex and the City: The Complete Series. Variety explains what those three Ben Franklins get you:

We have no idea if this is actually Adrian Grenier's Friendster, as we're told it is. We're sort of willing to believe it, for several reasons including that it dates back to well before the debut of Entourage. Real or not, though, we very much enjoy the "favorite books" section:

We've really got to hand it to HBO. They've dovetailed the plot of The Comeback's fictional Room & Bored (which bombed in its premiere in last night's episode) so seamlessly with the fate of the real-life show that we have a hard time discerning fantasy from reality. Our confusion is so thorough that we also have no idea if we despise Lisa Kudrow, Valerie Cherish, or even Phoebe; each time we see a Friends episode, we're disappointed that one of the showrunners never breaks the fourth wall to humiliate her.

NY Times television critic Virginia Heffernan has fallen madly, irrationally, lock-the-door-and-tell-your-assistant- to-hold-your-calls- while-you-take-me-right-here- on-the-glasstop-desk in love with Entourage's agent-at-arms, Ari Gold (or Jeremy Piven, but aren't the lines of entertainment and reality always so tantalizing blurred on that show?), spilling out 1,100 words of white-hot ardor in today's paper:

We take absolutely no credit for the side-by-side or the inspired headline, both of which come straight from Feh. Also check out the flattering photo of Will & Grace creator Max Mutchnick accompanying a knee-capping of the Four Kings pilot.

With last night's disappointing Entourage premiere (and it's not like the bar was set so high last season, other than the Jeremy Piven scenes) out of the way, we're reminded that Piven's fictional, bitch-hugging agent Ari Gold is at least partly based on reportedly real, ten percent eminence/Agent Dance mascot Ari Emanuel. NY Daily News JV gossipist Lloyd Grove induces executive producer Mark "Hey, What About My Life? That Could Be A Show, Right?" Wahlberg to discuss the intersection of the real-life and make-believe Aris, as well as his own Emanuel run-ins:

A reader submits this cameraphone shot of his Santa Monica dry cleaner's wall, where a headshot for Lisa Kudrow's character from her new HBO show The Comeback hangs. How long before the hallowed, grease-spattered walls of Pink's are dotted with similar stunts, tainting the credibility of Jay Leno's freely-given glossy love? Or until a producer inspects the headshot he's just been handed in exchange for a toothy, unsatisfying blowjob, then realizes that he's been handed a sneaky advertisement for Joey and isn't getting the opportunity to advance some young go-getter's career? Truly, nothing in Hollywood is sacred anymore.

Judging from the screaming Breaking Story! tag in a bright, red font, the e-mail blasts, and the messages from readers who don't read the trades online asking if there's any truth to the Newmarket "rumor." we're going to guess that this development is pretty important. But until you give us a Lohan angle, we refuse to care.