John linked to this the other day, but in case you didn’t click it, here’s an excerpt from the Onion AV Club’s interview with Kristin Bell.

AVC: So if Rob Thomas turned in a Veronica Mars movie script—as he’s been hinting he might—it’s safe to assume you’d do it.

KB: Shit, yes! Rob works on the same lot where Heroes is filmed, and I actually went to his office just the other day. Honestly, I was just planning to rearrange his desk and freak him out. [Laughs.] But he was in there, so we talked a lot about it. I’m totally down to do it.

So, yeah. Let’s not get our hopes up, gentle pups, but it’s fun to think that this could be a reality. I think Veronica Mars could make a more natural movie (or, dare I say, franchise) than, say, Arrested Development — which appears to be full-steam ahead.

Here’s my question for the week: Have the teenage characters on Gossip Girl always been, like, 35? Or 52? Because this week Blair wore a blouse I swear my mom owns, and Serena’s artist beau confessed that he’s a teetotaler and passive-aggressived that she should be, too (which, as Sars just mentioned, is bad for your relationship! Duh!). And Bart Bass dabbled in gay teenage romance, which I guess makes him kind of like a warped Emma Woodhouse. It’s starting to seem like Rufus and Jenny Humphrey are the only teenagers on this show. Oh, and the Captain. He’s about at Jenny’s maturity level with his whole let’s-run-off-to-Dominica! gambit. Tell me the TSA can’t identify Fake New York’s most-wanted financial fugitive when he comes through JFK?

It's a good think I'm not a van der Woodsen, because on Thanksgiving I like to wear elastic-waist pants.

So Nate and Vanessa and Eric all returned this week, to varying results. I’m still not Vanessa’s #1 Biggest Fan, because I’m jealous of her hair and because everything she says makes me want to take a cheese grater to my ears. But mostly because she seems to hover halfway between earnest do-gooder and devious schemer, and the result is that she’s not very good at either. Nate’s eyebrows did the lion’s share of the heavy lifting this week as his father returned and declared that the nest egg he stole from his clients bought a lovely house on a Caribbean island where the Captain, Anne, and Nate can all live in delightful criminal exile. Except that the Captain is planning on kidnapping his wife and child for ransom? Or something? Since the Captain came up with it, it was a shit plan. Nate, being the only person on this show (other than Eric) with a moral compass, thinks that’s a terrible idea! Because then, how will Hogwarts Yale know where to find him when they send their acceptance letter tied to a unicorn’s horn?!

Eric finally got an AWESOME storyline. After Bart slithered in and revealed that Eric’s gentleman friend might be poking his swim captain (so the Gossip Girl writers are penning their own slashfic now?), Chuck revealed that both he and Bart keep a private investigator on retainer. I am choosing to believe that this PI is Veronica Mars. And then Chuck let Eric into Bart’s Safe of Magical Spy Tricks, where he grabbed both his and Serena’s files. What will we learn next? That Serena actually killed someone at boarding school? That Eric is the product of Lily’s second marriage, to Daniel Craig? That Nate and Serena are ACTUALLY SIBLINGS OMG?! No, juicier: That Lily was institutionalized as a teenager for as-yet undisclosed mental-health issues and she didn’t tell her son about it when he tried to kill himself even though that would have, maybe, I guess, helped. But Eric is a wise little elf who is incapable of holding grudges, although that seems to be more an evolutionary flaw of the younger van der Woodsen generation than a strength, because mark my words, S, this will end in TEARS. Or blood and fire. One of those.

P.S. The delightful Aliya won our Gossip Girl giveaway from a few weeks ago. So the DVD, soundtrack, and SUPER AWESOME BOARD GAME will be going to Aliya’s house, since she had the best answer to Never Have I Ever: “Voted for Sarah Palin.” Brava, patriot! Watch in good health.

• Don Rickles + Barack Obama + basketball jokes = bad idea
• Top Chef premiere sets ratings record
• It’s Alec Baldwin promotional toilet paper
• TV’s best new show is…
• Tyra to pay for Isis’ sex reassignment surgery
• Bruno (Sacha Baron Cohen) crashed the set of Medium
• Lipstick Jungle not cancelled? Do we care?
• Pushing Daisies not yet dead
• The Hills gets picked up for a fifth season
• Wanda Sykes has come out of the closet
• This day in lists: The 40 best TV theme songs

A few weeks ago I posted about the British show Dead Set — a British zombie mini-series with the gimmick being that the zombie outbreak takes place at the set of the UK Big Brother. Well, I just finished watching it, and I must say it was a much more satisfying experience than anything I’ve seen debut on American TV this year.

One of the things I liked most about Dead Set is that it didn’t aspire to make a broad social commentary, which would inevitably be some sort of snooty commentary on the sloth and mindlessness inspired by television (or, perhaps, the vapid and unfulfilling nature of fame). At heart, this is just a well made thriller that is both engaging and gut-wrenching (and gut-devouring, for that matter).

I really like the idea of zombie movies as a distinct subgenre, with each movie having identifiable moments and stock characters. There’s the plucky hero/heroine, the loudmouth with bad ideas, the loveable character who we know has been infected and must be killed,  etc. Finding different ways to watch these play out is fun (for me, at least) to watch.

But — back to the point — I’d definitely recommend getting your hands on Dead Set. If you’re on the fence about wondering whether or not you can handle zombie movie, then don’t. It’s gruesome affair, with things reaching insane levels of bloody in the penultimate episode onward.

Side note: I’ve been watching Dead Set primarily on my iPod and primarily on public transportation. This is a mistake — but one I acknowledged and continued to make on a regular basis. While I usually tried to hide my screen from my fellow train passengers, I’m pretty sure a few people gave me weird looks because they heard screaming coming from my headphones.

You may have heard from various news outlets last week that Saturday Night Live recently hired two new, female cast members. If you hadn’t, you might not have noticed during Saturday’s Paul Rudd-hosted episode, unless you were paying close attention to the opening credits: that was one of the only moments where you could catch a glimpse of Abby Elliott (daughter of former cast member Chris) or Michaela Watkins. They had a few other walk-on parts throughout the show, but Rudd’s go-round was a boys-club affair, with tons of face-time for Bill Hader (five sketches plus a short film) as well as plenty of Andy Samberg (three sketches plus his Digital Short), Jason Sudeikis and Will Forte (three apiece). Even the established women were on the backburner; Kristen Wiig was more or less gone after the first half-hour, and perpetually underused Casey Wilson was barely visible at all.

This isn’t an inherently bad thing; Hader, Sudeikis, Forte, and Samberg are all hilarious. But despite the wonderful Rudd, most of the sketches were thin and silly, and not in a good way. The episode started out well enough, with an amusing Joe Biden opening and Rudd’s subsequent monologue about a post-election comedy vacuum, and how it will be filled by exciting new impressions like Wiig’s Janet Napolitano. I was even willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the excessive-kissing-family, even though “people do something to weird out a guest” is a tired sketch format, because committed performance triumphed over the lazy writing.

• Why did Ted Allen leave Top Chef?
• BJ Novak leaving The Office?
• Sci Fi has renewed Sanctuary for a second season
• Arianna Huffington joins the cast of Cleveland as a talking bear
• Photos: The most memorable TV gays
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 turns 20
• TV Guide has scoop on Grey’s, True Blood, Nip/Tuck and more
• io9 is predicting Dollhouse will be Joss Whedon’s greatest work
• So I guess the Sarah Palin/Desperate Housewives rumor isn’t true
• Wasn’t funny 1600 years ago either: Month Python dead parrot sketch found in book from 400 A.D.
• This day in lists: Top supernatural romances in TV and film

From the curmudgeons at House to the sex-crazed residents of Grey’s Anatomy, which medical show’s staff would you most want treating you? (BuzzSugar)

This week, Sandie came up with a cool Twilight TV series: The Cullens. (Daemon’s TV)

Looking for happy thoughts to hold of the grey and dreary days of winter, Jody came up with a list of her Top 5 Happy TV Moments like Buffy not letting The First keep her down in “Chosen” or the series premiere of Lost. (RTVW)

If it wrong for an old dude to like the new Taylor Swift album Fearless, Scooter doesn’t want to run into Chris Hansen anytime soon. (Scooter McGavin’s 9th Green)

The set ups are getting a bit obvious but Vance still likes Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters and Degrassi:TNG (Tapeworthy)

This week, Jace interviewed Chris Lilley, the creator/writer/star of HBO’s new comedy series Summer Heights High, about what it’s like to play Jonah Takalua, what’s next for him and the characters, and those rumors that he refused to sell the format rights for Summer Heights High. (Televisionary)

The TiFaux gang bid adieu to Total Request Live (and, in a way, their youths) by each giving their top five videos ever. (TiFaux)

This week, theTVaddict.com used Twitter to snag an interview with UGLY BETTY’s David Blue (Cliff St. Paul) [The TV Addict]

Kate talked to Tom and Padma from Top Chef (TV Filter)

Heather got to see a sneaky preview of 24: Redemption. Her verdict? “Jack-tastic”, whatever that means… (TV Spy)

Now that everyone’s finished contributing their music videos, the gang has left me to bat clean-up (<– sports reference!).

For the record, though, I do remember watching Total Request Live and even kinda-sorta having an investment who won. Hell, I remember Dial MTV — the no-frills precursor to TRL (which was probably followed by a nice game of Remote Control). But those were the glory days. The times before they devoted the shows to children giving testimonials to the artists and screaming over the music.

Kids today.

Meanwhile, my videos. There’s really no rhyme or reason to this — some of it is nostalgia-driven, some of it is stuff I just thought was cool.

Radiohead – Just

This video sticks with me as one of my all-time favorites. I like a good narrative in a music video. Plus, when this came out I thought the ending was really compelling. I won’t ruin it for you if you haven’t seen it, but teenage Dan was really into it.

Guys! Guys! There’s going to be a gay superhero show on Showtime!

This is either going to be the best thing or worst thing to ever happen to the network. Possibly both. But Variety says that Stan Lee is developing the series, based on the book Hero by Perry Moore.

Secret identities indeed!!!

By the way — Kyle comments on the edited news post:

The gay superhero show is based on the book “Hero” by Perry Moore, who directed a film I assistant edited called Lake City which is apparently being released in theaters next week.