• The Smoking Gun's exposé of A Million Little Pieces hits the fan.
• Oprah defends Frey on Larry King Live.
• Publisher denies rumor that they're offiering refunds on Frey's book.
• Made-up memoirs are old news.
• Frey threatens The Smoking Gun with a lawsuit.

• John Doe is picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel.
• Dane Cook gets his own HBO special.
• Shelley Winters dies at 85.
• Dave Marash, formerly of Nightline, joins Al-Jazeera International.
• David Chase says that this is definitely the final season of The Sopranos. Uh-huh.
• Another station bans The Book of Daniel.
• Fox to air remaining Arrested Development episodes against Olympic opener.
• Cynthia Watros of Lost apologizes for DUI.
• Ted Koppel to write New York Times op-ed column.
• Bob swears he heard Dave Letterman say he was retiring in 2-3 years.
• CBS denies that Letterman's retiring in 2-3 years..
• Linday Lohan denies parts of Vanity Fair article.
• Hillary Swank and Chad Lowe separate.
• Lillo Brancato arraigned on murder charges.

• Jonathan hates crossovers. So do most of the readers.
• Readers tell Annie why they do or don't still watch ER.
• Readers argue whether Jen Aniston should have been told about the Pitt/Jolie fetus.
• Bob asks the readers if Law & Order changed their font.
• Karina and the readers discuss the TomKat appearance on Ellen.
• Anna lists the pilots in development, wonders if any of them will ever get made.
• Bob asks readers to tell him what happened on Supernatural.

• Reasons why guys love beauty pagents.
• Best Sesame Street songs.
• Characters that Bob would love to be.

• My picks for Best and Worst of 2005.
• Anna thinks there should be a Golden Globes drinking game.
• I become the third Squadder to fawn over Amy Sedaris.
• The stars of Ed are all over TV, and Bob couldn't be happier.
• Bob thinks that Bill O'Reilly should just stifle it.
• Bob also hates it when local anchors address national anchors like they know each other.

• Saturday Night Live: Scarlett Johansson / Death Cab for Cutie
• The Book of Daniel: "Acceptance"
• Battlestar Galactica: "Resurrection Ship (Part 2)"
• The Office: "The Injury"
• Lost: "The 23rd Psalm"
• Gilmore Girls: "The Perfect Dress"
• Emily's Reasons Why Not: "Pilot"
• Surface: Episode 12
• The Simpsons: "Homer's Paternity Coot"
• The West Wing: "Running Mates"

I hate going through long legal briefs, but basically author James Frey has threatened The Smoking Gun with a multi-million dollar lawsuit if the site or anyone from the site describes Frey as a "liar" or says that he fabricated events in the book.

We all knew this was coming, right? The interesting thing is, this letter from his attorneys is dated January 6, almost a week before he was on Larry King Live, and Frey didn't mention a possible lawsuit at all. Of course, King didn't ask Frey if he thought about suing the site, so it's not as if he's just going to give up that information.

For the record, I was underwhelmed by Frey's explanations/defense on King's show. I understand that almost all memoirs have events that are changed, names that are changed, and time that is compressed, but he wrapped he whole defense in this touchy-feely, Oprah-ish, "if this book helps other addicts" emotional cocoon, as if that explains away what the Smoking Gun uncovered. And having his mom and Oprah on at the end was just icing on the cake.

Seth Mnookin gives his take at Slate, while Meghan O'Rourke wonders if it matters if memoirs are true or not. 

• On the cover: juicy info on the new season of 24 (returns January 15).
• EW lists the bad shows they love.
• Michael Slezak lists some things that Desperate Housewives needs to do to get better.
• The Popwatch blog asks some questions about this whole James Frey/Oprah mess.
• Poll: what returning show are you most looking forward to in 2006? Prison Break? 24? Sopranos? Rescue Me? 

First Oprah had to apologize to birds. Now she might have to apologize to her many fans.

The Smoking Gun has just finished a six week invesigation into the background of James Frey, the author of A Million Little Pieces, which Oprah picked for her book club a few months ago. It's (supposedly) Frey's memoir, of how he had drug problems, went into rehab, went to jail several times, kicked the habit, etc, but TSG has found out that many of the events that Frey said happened either happened differently than he said, happened but he wasn't involved, or didn't happen at all. It's a long piece, much too long to summarize here, so take a look.