Just this past week, HBO announced the addition of Gretchen Mol to the cast of its upcoming series 'Boardwalk Empire,' starring Steve Buscemi as Atlantic City gangster Nucky Thompson. With a string of respectable supporting roles, Mol's made a career out of not-quite making it, starting with her famous 1998 'Vanity Fair' cover that asked the entirely premature question: "Is Gretchen Mol Hollywood's New It Girl?"

But though Mol didn't exactly fade into obscurity (she earned kudos for her eye-opening turn in the indie 'The Notorious Bettie Page' and co-starred in ABC's short-lived 'Life on Mars'), neither did she become the huge success the industry predicted she would be. What happened? Was it luck, timing, bad choices or simply a case of too much hype? Whatever that case, Mol's casting got us thinking about other "Almost It" girls that Hollywood left behind about as quickly as it tried to make them mega-stars.

"You Don't Know Dick": A very quick fun fact about Dick Cheney to help you decide what to get him for Christmas... He wants a silver deathbox. And I can't believe I'm half-defending Cheney, but, in all fairness, he didn't actually say, "Damn, I need one of those"... He said he thought it. That's a fairly significant difference.

"Indecision v. 2.008: Food Edition": Presidential candidates have been using teh interwebz to share their stories from the campaign trail. I'm not gonna lie, this segment made me really, really hungry. Although, that bit about John Edwards and his wife celebrating their 30th anniversary at a Wendy's left me more confused than peckish. Yeah, you're a normal all-American guy, Edwards, we get it. A normal all-American millionaire Senator guy.

• At 8, NBC has a new, two-hour America's Got Talent.
• FOX has a new On The Lot at 8.
• Also at 8: TCM has The Bigamist, with Edmond O'Brien, Joan Fontaine, and Ida Lupino, followed by Outrage with Tod Anderews and Mala Powers (who passed away two weeks ago).
• The Bourne Identity airs on USA at 8:30.
• At 9, PBS has a new Frontline/World.
• ABC has Shaq's Big Challenge at 9, then a new Primetime.
• Discovery has a new Dirty Jobs at 9.
• Lifetime has the new movie Abducted at 9.
• At 10, TLC has a new Miami Ink.
• Bravo has a new Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List at 10.
• There's a new ECW on Sci-Fi at 10.

Check your local TV listings for more.

ABC had garnered a fair amount of press over this one because of the obvious tie-in to the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie movie. The big news is that the creators of the movie are back for the TV show. Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Swingers) and Simon Kinberg (X-Men: The Last Stand) have signed on to try and transform their movie to the small screen.

We've heard the stories this week that director/producer J.J. Abrams is interested in having Matt Damon play Captain Kirk in an upcoming movie about Kirk and Spock. But something troubles me. All of the articles are saying that Damon will play a "young" Captain Kirk. Huh? Damon is going to be 36 in a few months, and will probably be 37 or 38 when the movie comes out.

Shatner was 35 when he did the original Star Trek.

Now, sure, they could mean (like Keith says) that they mean younger than Shatner now, but they can't mean that or we could get someone 60 and compared to Shatner that would be "young." I think this is really a matter of everyone who's writing about it misunderstanding what exactly the plot will be and just repeating the same line about a young Kirk, as if it means young = before the original.

Oh, Trekkies Trekkers are going to have a lot to say about this, I'm sure.

J.J. Abrams says that's he wants to cast Damon as the captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the new Star Trek movie he is putting together. And he even has the blessing of the original Captain James. T. Kirk, William Shatner.

I think this is a good idea, actually. Damon looks the part, and as the Bourne movies showed, he can do action. But please, please, please don't cast Ben Affleck as Spock. Nothing against Affleck, I just think that would be too much to take, like it's Space Will Hunting or something.