Oh, Fox. What will you think of next?

You’re got quite a network there, House

Tonight, in a bid to cling on to viewers who might want to switch over to Dancing with the Stars, Fox is extending American Idol 7 minutes into the 9:00 hour. Although I do think that House — now running 9:07 to 10:07 — is better than DwtS, this seems like such a strong-armed, sleazy method of making people realize that. And I didn’t think it was actually possible for American Idol to get sleazier.

Vote for Olyphant in the tournament!

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming: Speaking of sleazy, there’s a new contender on the block — Great American Dream Vote. I think it’s trying to be patriotic and stirring, but it sounds to me like a college psych experiment gone horribly wrong. The idea that a mob of people can arbitrarily decide whose dreams can come true and whose aren’t worth it sounds like cruelty to the participants, and it gives the mob a hugely inflated sense of their ability to affect change in the world (i.e., if we vote, we will make a deserving person happy! But only one; the other one can suck it).

In my continuing efforts to turn TiFaux into a “boys are so dreeeeeeamy” blog, let’s talk about Charlie from Lost, shall we?

It’s no secret that I loves me some Charlie. Before he even got on the show, I was calling him “the hot hobbit” and celebrating his marble-mouthed quirkiness. Charmed, I was.

Like everyone on Lost, Charlie’s not a perfect character. He tries too hard, he’s sneaky and — in his most troubling moment on the series — he attacked Sun to get back at Locke (in other news, if I were a betting man I’d wager that that whole incident is going to be dredged up on the next episode). But I love him all the same.

This latest twist with Desmond is a little weird, not because it’s not interesting, but because it’s basically the plot of Final Destination — the 2000 teen horror flick that pitted a crew of attractive high school students against death itself. The movie starred a mid-Dawson’s Creek Kerr Smith and a pre-Heroes Ali Larter and spawned two sequels — which may or may not have gone direct to video. Wikipedia that if you must.

Nikki/Jessica as a brunette. Jack McPhee as a straight jock.

The plot of the movie goes like this: high school students go on a trip to Paris. Before the plane takes off, the protagonist (Devon Sawa) has a premonition that the plane is going to blow up. He pitches a fit and gets everyone in his group kicked off the plane. The plane blows up. Death is mad. Death starts bending the laws of physics to reclaim all the people who should’ve died on the plane. It eventually does. Death doesn’t actually have a presence in the film, but is instead symbolized with eerie breezes and creepy mise en scene (freshman seminar in film studies — holla!).

Back to Lost — whenever they have a Charlie-should-have-died moment, I think of that movie and wonder if someone brought this to their attention before they committed it to film. And if there was some sort of meeting in the JJ Abrams war room about whether there would be some sort of re-write or re-shoot. I mean, probably not, because it’s not the exact same thing — but it has the same predestination-y motif going on.

This tournament is getting out of hand.

• The woman who does the music for Greys Anatomy is starting her own record label.
• Nina Garcia had a boy.
• Top Design’s Kelly Wearstler is completely out of control and the gals at Go Fug Yourself give her proper attention. She’s totally screwing with us, right? It must be some kind of art… thing.
• Shane West from ER may or may not have been making out with the guy who played the son in A History of Violence. Depends on who you ask.
• Want to hear something weird? Bob “The Bachelor” Guiney has a band. And you know who else is in it? Greg Grunberg (Parkman from Heroes) on drums, James Denton (Mike from Desperate Houswives) on guitar and (wait for it) Hugh Laurie on piano. They’re called Band From TV and if they weren’t a charity fundraising promotional thing, I think the whole endeavor would make me cry on concept alone.
• Hell’s Kitchen will be back in June.
• Slate ponders whether Bravo’s purchase of Television Without Pity will ruin everything.
• Coyote Ugly waif Piper Perabo will play a potential love interest for Dr. House.
• American Idol will never die. Forbes does the math.
• Kristen Bell gets her yard done and millions watch.
• Spoiler (ish) for The Office!  NBC has this promotional video for the April 5 episode of The Office that’s super God-awful.  It’s a look back at the whole Jim/Pam courtship to the tune of some sort of Nicklebacky, Creedy supa-ballad.  BUT, if you fast forward to the very end (last 20 seconds or so) of this YouTube clip, it has a very OMG finale with a spoiler to the premise of the next episode. Six words: “I’m going to kill Jim Halpert.”