Every geek's favorite show of the moment Heroes is set to expire in three episodes due to the Writers Guild strike. What will the twitchy geeks do without their superhero fix? Fortunately, we have a solution. Have you ever noticed that Yahoo vice president Jeff Weiner, rumored to be on the outs with new president Sue Decker, bears an uncanny resemblance to Heroes villain Sylar? Or that CEO and cofounder Jerry Yang could stand in for the cuddly, bespectacled Hiro Nakamura? That's right: Substitute the hit show's cast with Yahoo's management team, and let the boardroom drama play out. No script necessary.

Following a recent mission of dolphin-saving mercy off the coast of Japan to prevent the slaughter of her favorite ocean-bound mammals (a commemorative tattoo of a pair of playful bottlenoses circling her navel is being custom-designed as we speak), indestructible Heroes cheerleader Hayden Panettiere now finds herself a fugitive from international justice for her interference in Pacific Rim commerce. Reports E! News:

· A mere nine years after the first X-Files film surfaced in theaters, Fox announces that the second of Mulder and Scully's big-screen adventures (a reteaming, if you will) will arrive on July 25, 2008, a project that will begin shooting in December in Vancouver, far away from the picket lines of Los Angeles. [Variety]
· Joss Whedon reteams (we love it when people reteam) with former Buffy cast member Eliza Dushku for Fox's Dollhouse, getting a seven-episode commitment from the network for an idea that struck Whedon in between bites of a Caesar salad while lunching with the actress. [THR]

Columbia Student and "independent filmmaker" Chaim Lazaros founded "Superheroes Anonymous" in order to collect and exploit a disparate group of costumed do-gooders from across the country. Unlike "real" superheroes, who often have extraordinary powers and act as violent vigilantes, flying in the face of the law, these people mostly put on funny capes, meet one another on MySpace, and then go pick up trash in Times Square.

Remember how crushed we were when our hero Gottfried Alexander Leopold Graf von Bismarck-Schönhausen, the "reckless and extravagant host of homosexual orgies," died in July? Well, the inquest into his death is at last over! Count von Party Time died the way he lived—absolutely full of cocaine. In fact, the medical examiner said that Count Gottfried von Bismarck's body "had the highest level of cocaine he had ever seen." Well played, sir! You will always live on in our hearts and veins.

Junot Diaz, whose long-awaited first novel The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao is the best book we've read in a long-ass time, was probably the most entertaining speaker at any of the butt-numbing events of the New Yorker Festival. New Yorker editor and faux musical lyricist Ben Greenman, who introduced Junot, admitted as much: "Of all the fiction events, you've picked the best one." The audience congratulated themselves in a low, respectful murmur.

So you can imagine how excited we were to see the new trailer for Confessions of a Superhero, a documentary about the people inside those ill-fitting spandex unitards that might actually satisfy our weird hero-jones in between the maddeningly infrequent times Angry Chewbacca gets liquored up and goes on a tour-guide headbutting spree. Or one of the Dueling Jack Sparrows gets so upset over his competitor's craft-debasing nonchalance about pirate-verisimilitude that he pulls out his dreadlocks with his bare hands. Really, we're not that picky about the specifics if it draws the KCAL9 van to the scene of the crime.

NBC chief Jeff Zucker just bought Kitty Carlisle Hart's five bedroom palace on 64th Street for $12.5 million. That works out to the same price as 75,000 seconds of primetime NBC ads. [NYM]

We're happy to report that Lucky and Flo, the two bacon-lovingest detectives in all of the MPAA, have nearly completed their Malaysian tour of duty, during which they uncovered millions of dollars worth of counterfeit DVDs while successfully evading the bounty hunters who sought to deliver their doggie heads on a plate. Unlike their annoying, Jason Lee-voiced big screen counterpart, however, these canine heroes are every bit the real deal, and the Malaysian government is throwing them a ceremony to show their gratitude:

"If you're going to swallow, just swallow it. Don't do that thing where you practically gargle it, get it all foamy in your mouth, and then half-spit it out to show the camera. This isn't Cum Guzzling Sluts—it's educational!" [VV]

The Emmy announcements are no exception to the time-worn awards show tradition of news outlets eliciting statements from the newly shortlisted artists—asking them, still dizzy from their gold-star high, to try as best as they can to put into words what it feels like to be recognized as more talented than their peers. (Until the night of the ceremony, that is, when four of the five are again reminded of their mediocrity.) We present a round-up of some of the most memorable, "it's just an honor to be mentioned in the same breath as Two and a Half Men" reactions:
· "This is an outrage." - Tina Fey [Variety]
· Nomination presenter Kyra Sedgwick deconstructs the existential dilemma of having to read one's own name off the TelePrompter: "It was pretty nauseating. I couldn't believe they wouldn't tell us before!I just thought, if I won't be nominated, I'll take a deep breath and be grateful I'm there to announce. It was a surprise." [USA Today]

Despite having received the GLAAD Squeal of Approval™, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry has mostly underwhelmed critics, one of whom wrote, "[It] isn't just unfunny; it's racist, sexist and homophobic — and truly unpleasant to watch." (In fairness, we should mention that the Village Voice review declared it "as eloquent as Brokeback Mountain," and included the pull-quote ready, "This sodomite had a gay old time"— sure to become the centerpiece of the movie's print marketing campaign.) It's not just critics who find themselves offended, however: At a TCA week promotional party for NBC's fall slate, Heroes' teleporting office worker Masi Oka disapproved of Rob Schneider's turn as the fake-gay couple's slanty-eyed officiating officer. From the USA Today report:

· HBO and Tom Hanks' Playtone are close to a deal to adapt the Vincent Bugliosi book Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy into a miniseries that would finally pay some attention to the allegedly shadowy circumstances surrounding the too-long-ignored event of JFK's untimely death. [Variety]
· John McTiernan will direct the "Las Vegas action thriller" High Stakes. The director's impressive list of credits include Die Hard, The Last Action Hero, and lying to the FBI about his involvement with wiretapper-to-the-stars Anthony Pellicano. [THR]
· Bourne franchise BFFs Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass are close to reigniting their professional love affair with an adaptation of the book Imperial Life in the Emerald City for Universal. [Variety]
· Newly installed NBC Universal TV Studio president Katherine Pope celebrates her promotion by dumping a huge pile of money in Heroes creator/executive producer Tim Kring's lap. [THR]
·And in other "showrunners getting filthy rich" news, Scrubs' Bill Lawrence (pictured, looking stunned by his staggering wealth) signs an eight-figure, four-year overall deal with ABC Studios, who bought him out of his NUTS contract. [Variety]

· New NBC golden boy Ben Silverman is already hard at work, talking disgruntled Donald Trump down from a Trump Tower ledge by reopening talks about possibly bringing back The Apprentice. "I can see this guy is gonna be a star," says Trump, appreciating the business savvy of a player who might not be afraid to throw away untold millions to return his low-rated show to primetime. [Variety]
· Dania "The One Who Drove AJ Soprano To Suicide" Ramirez will join Heroes as a series regular. (Hey, she's got mutant experience from X-Men 3.) While her "powers are being kept under wraps," producers are rumored to still be deciding between superhuman Rollerblading skills and the ability to make the world's most delicious sandwiches. [THR]
· The Canadian government quickly surrenders to visiting California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, helpless against his onslaught of tired movie catchphrases meant to communicate the importance of introducing tougher anti-piracy legislation. [Variety]
· Not that you might possibly care, but USA won the cable rights to Pirates 3, completing its acquisition of all three installments of the franchise. [THR]
· Pirate Master (which we actually watched, God help us, confirming our suspicion that it's nothing more than Survivor with an eyepatch and a big boat) is off to a weak start for CBS. None of us are going to make it through the summer TV season alive, we can feel it already. [Variety]

Last week, Heroes co-EP Bryan Fuller said in an interview that the character of Zach (actor Thomas Dekker) was supposed to have come out as a gay teen, but that his management, concerned that it might affect his casting as young John Connor in a Terminator TV series, balked at the prospect and pulled him from the show. A Defamer reader forwarded us Dekker's own response to the controversy, posted in a MySpace bulletin. An excerpt:

It's hard with all that sixth-order navel-gazing and water-cooler fellatio and gripping boardroom oratory on the weekdays to keep up with what's actually going on at Media Level Zero. You know, like on TV and stuff. Thus, TiVo Theosophy, in which our special correspondent Daniel Luxemburg, who may or may not own a television, momentarily steps out of the geist-glow to tell us what it all means. And why to go on anyway. Or not. Consider him a First Life avatar.

Many were confounded by the character of Zach on Heroes, the cheerleader's best friend who seemed to be inching out of the closet, but who abruptly disappeared from the series without ever uttering the magic words. After Elton then elicited an official statement from NBC saying he was "not gay," leaving the world scratching their heads at what straight guy would list Priscilla Queen of the Desert as his favorite movie on his fake MySpace page, to say nothing of accompanying the homecoming queen to prom without once ever trying to get all up in her taffeta. Talking to the PopGurls blog, co-EP Bryan Fuller explains the behind-the-scenes power struggle that led to the last minute straightwashing of the popular character:

AfterElton.com explores the fascinating case of the character of Zach from NBC's hit drama, Heroes: The best friend and confidante to the series' pivotal cheerleader character Claire, Zach (actor Thomas Dekker) was conceived by the show's creators to be a gay teenager. And while Zach never once uttered the words "I'm gay," up until the "Homecoming" episode that aired Nov. 20, all signs still pointed to Queer. (The episode features the cheerleader punching out another girl who called Zach a "gay boy," and later features a scene in which Zach refuses to accompany Claire to the homecoming "for a million different reasons," then seguing into a maddeningly vague speech about embracing one's otherness.) AfterElton reports the official Heroes website even summarized the exchange by saying "Zach stammers with his reply, admitting that he's gay," words which then went mysteriously missing from the online recap. His MySpace page, meanwhile, lists his orientation as "Not Sure," and his favorite movies as a lavender laundry list of the usual suspects (Rocky Horror, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Velvet Goldmine, etc.). So why, then, with Dekker about to leave the show to star in a Terminator TV series, are NBC and the actor's reps now insisting the character was straight all along?

A reader excited by the prospect that Variety might be evolving its coverage of the industry to more directly appeal to subscribers with a healthy interest in upskirt photography directed us to page 9 of today's paper, where an otherwise fairly dry story about November sweeps is enlivened with this promotional photo of Heroes' indestructible cheerleader inadvertently showing off her spanky pants. (The online version of the article uses a different, more modest image, in case you were wondering.) It's probably not racy enough to get a Charlie Sheen-level cheer-porn connoisseur all hot and bothered, but it might do the trick for an assistant looking for a way to kill some time in an empty office before the Thanksgiving holiday.