mandy moore

"Scott Free": The White House Chief of Staff, Josh Bolten, recently told his senior aides, "If you're thinking about leaving, now's the time." Ooh, ominous. Now, I must admit I got a little overexcited by the following news because the 19th was my birthday, and I considered this to be yet another reason to celebrate... Scott McClellan resigned from his position as the White House's Press Secretary. The Daily Show crowd and I burst into applause. I couldn't even correctly type "OMG" in my notes.

I have to give props to Reuters for its headline for this story, ABC Matches Heche with "Men". As Mandy Moore would say, "that's funny."

Heche will play a shrink who moves to Alaska when she learns her husband has been cheating on her, only to discover Alaska is full of single men (it is?). Also cast in the pilot are Derek Richardson, from the movie Hostel, and Emily Bergl, who played Francie Jarvis on Gilmore Girls. We last saw Anne during an arc on Nip/Tuck where she played a woman in the witness protection program.

November sweeps stunts brought us stormtroopers on The Apprentice, a live debate on The West Wing, a dead chick on Lost and Medium in 3-D. Why are February ratings so tame? One word: Olympics.

NBC is expected to kick some television tail when it covers the Olympics every single night from February 10-26. Going into this month, the networks are touting some pretty uninteresting guest stars on the shows that need a boost. And that's about it. Oh, there is also going to be some sh*t going down on The O.C., but you don't want the spoilers, do you?

Here are some highlights for February sweeps, which began yesterday and run through March 1:

Scrubs is finally returning to television tonight! And guess what? The writers, directors, and actors have all been locked in a hospital in the San Fernando valley, thinking that this could the last season, so they're doing it all for us, the fans. You know what that means? Extra wacky voiceovers, imaginary sequences, Mandy Moore, and an homage to The Wizard of Oz (100th episode, airing Jan. 24th). In several recent interviews, Zach Braff has said that everyone on the show went no-holds-barred on the scripts because they had no idea whether anyone would ever see the show. NBC inexplicably kept them off the schedule for the first half of the season. So, as Braff says in the Indianapolis Star, "It's about going, OK-- these are our hardcore fans, let's make shows for them." They are producing a full season of 24 episodes, which means that we will be treated to back-to-back episodes of Scrubs for the rest of the season. The season premiere airs tonight at 9 pm, followed by another new episode at 9:30 pm.

[Thanks for the reminder, Ryan M.!]