He's been a spy guy in 'Alias,' a hottie English teacher in 'Never Been Kissed,' a corporate honcho in 'Big Shots' ... and now Michael Vartan's a doctor -- well, he plays one on TV -- in TNT's new drama 'HawthoRNe' (premieres June 16, 9PM ET).

The French-born Vartan talks to AOL TV about his new TV gig, his history of working with top-notch leading ladies (including 'Alias' co-star and onetime real-life girlfriend Jennifer Garner) and about how he prefers his women in workout gear rather than evening gowns.

It's that time of the year. People are being cast in pilots left and right and some interesting stuff has been announced. At ABC, Christopher Titus (Titus) has landed one of the lead roles in an untitled project from Warner Bros. The show focuses on CEOs and also stars Dylan McDermott (The Practice) and Michael Vartan (Alias). McDermott and Vartan as CEOs is an easy sell. But Christopher Titus, Senior VP Harvard graduate? That's different, and something I look forward to checking out.

Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix) is set to star in ABC's Suspect. The show is a procedural that will solve crimes by tracking suspects through a lineup. She's joined by Eric Palladino (ER) and Kathleen Munroe (Beautiful People). The ABC track record for procedurals is less than impressive, but the addition of Guy Ritchie (Snatch) as director is intriguing enough to give this one a look.

So I'm reading Michael Ausiello's column over at TV Guide.com, and he mentions that Michael Vartan was very, very close to joining the cast of one of his top five favorite shows...but then he doesn't mention the show's name! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Therefore, until he does reveal the name of the show and why Vartan didn't join, we're just going to have to sit here and guess. As a reader at the site points out, Ausiello's favs include Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars, Lost, and Battlestar Galactica. The most obvious choice would be Lost, because, like Vartan's old show Alias, it's produced by J.J. Abrams. But is that too obvious? Not that it can't be obvious, of course. It would make sense that Abrams would offer him a role. I don't watch the other shows so I'm not sure what role he could have on those.

Readers?

We'll forget all about those nasty rumors for now and concentrate on what's going to happen to our favorite spies that we do know. TV Guide's Insider has a pic of Syd and "Vaughn", post-car crash (on the right), and has all the info you need on the new characters that will be around for season 5.

The new season starts on September 29 at 8pm. Yeah, that's a Thursday. It's going up against Survivor. That might be worse than Rambaldi.

I'm not even going to put a picture for this post, because I don't want to upset longtime Alias fans. I just want to tell you that there's a big rumor (big as in it has legs and teeth and might just be true) that a major cast member is leaving the show. If you want to know what I'm talking about and what site you can visit to stop this from happening, read after the jump...