So what if tuning in to "Big Brother" is about as exciting as watching the paint on "Survivor" contestants' faces dry? CBS is apparently unconcerned.
"We are extremely pleased with the results," network CEO Les Moonves told the Television Critics Association.
"If sometimes it is boring," the show's executive producer, Douglas Ross, chimed in, "people keep tuning in because they want to see if something is going to happen."
Ross also suspects we'll see things steam up a bit now that troublemaker William Collins has been ousted. "The entire mood of the house has changed from being all about confrontation to one all about sex," he proclaimed. "They're all getting sort of horny."
Good thing what's-his-name brought those condoms -- it's time for some infrared love.
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Someone really needs to shut her up
"I'm just like a menu for my male fans ... they look but they can't afford me."
-- Tennis ego Anna Kournikova on why men eat her up, in Sky Magazine
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Powers to the people? Not so fast
If you thought that, now that he'd scuttled "Dieter," Mike Myers would rush back into production on a new "Austin Powers" flick, you can kiss that little fantasy so long.
Michael York, who played Basil Exposition in the first two films, would like to fill you in on the Austin state of affairs. "I keep hearing rumors, and then definite statements that he's doing another," York tells the U.K. film site Popcorn. "I think Mike's very clever and realizes that he was, you know, overexposed -- both physically and media-wise -- and I'm sure he'll wait for a time when people are wanting it."
York says, however, that, when the time comes for Austin to ride again (Oh, behave!) -- he'll be back to re-create his role. "Otherwise, who's going to explain what's going on?" he says.
Um ... Dr. Evil?
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And you thought he'd sold out
"I was approached by a start-up guy who offered Iman and me something called a 'wombcam,' and I said, 'Thank you, but we will pass on that one.'"
-- David Bowie, in his Yahoo! Internet Life Online Music Awards acceptance speech.
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Gooood Morning, 1970s!
Who's the casting genius who came up with this one: Robin Williams as Liberace?
Williams is reportedly considering playing the late, amply bejeweled piano man in an eponymous biopic. Phil Kaufman ("The Right Stuff," "The Unbearable Lightness of Being") is slated to direct the film, which, by the way, is a drama -- not a comedy.
Once more into the Doubtfire?
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Juicy bits
Looks like O.J. Simpson isn't the only one getting his feelings hurt by the women of "The View." Tammy Faye Bakker-Messner says Star Jones' on-air accusation that she and her televangelist ex-hubby stole from the Praise the Lord network "put a knife through my heart." "I think Star must have some hidden problems of her own," Messner mused to TV Guide Online. "Generally you do when you lash out as somebody else." (Tell it to O.J., Tammy Faye.) But hey, no hard feelings, she says, "It's OK, Star. Keep truckin', girl!" Keep on truckin'? Dyn-o-mite!
If you were planning to go see the Beastie Boys/Rage Against the Machine Rhyme and Reason tour this summer, you might want to make other plans. The show has been postponed after Beastie Mike Diamond had an unfortunate little bicycling run-in with a New York pothole that left him with a dislocated shoulder in need of surgery. According to the band's Web site, "Mike's going to be OK, but after the third opinion came back that 45 days of touring could cause permanent damage to his shoulder, everyone agreed the tour would have to be postponed." Hello, nasty turn of events.
Guess what? Richard's not the only member of the Tagi tribe who likes to air out his bottom. No, indeedy. A forthcoming book from "Survivor" creator Mark Burnett, "Survivor! The Official Companion Book," reveals that the entire tribe, except Dirk and Rudy, bonded early on by skinny-dipping together each morning. Perhaps CBS refrained from showing it because they didn't have enough blurry dots?
If you want to know what's going on with the "X-Files'" Cigarette-Smoking Man, who took a serious spill down the stairs in the show's season finale, don't ask the guy who plays him. William B. Davis hasn't a clue. "I don't know," Davis tells Canada's Edmonton Sun. "While I know I'm not in the first few episodes, I was told, ah, I'm not supposed to tell anything. Oh dear, well, I'm telling you that somehow my character figures in the first couple of episodes. But I have no idea how or in what way." Unless he's just blowing smoke ...
The world has David Letterman to thank for Kathie Lee Gifford's imminent departure from morning TV. Gifford tells the Associated Press she had an epiphany on the Ed Sullivan Theater stage after subbing for Letterman this past winter. As the applause caressed her, she recalls, "I thought, 'This is the moment where your life changed.' I have to do different things now." Four days later, she told Regis she was ditching him. And that -- let us all rejoice! -- was her final answer.
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