HollywoodIdiocy.com

Perhaps the writers strike isn’t going to be the big deal some are anticipating.

Word on the street is that Ben Silverman and NBC are interested in developing a spin-off of The Office, which could potentially air next season. No word on casting, although industry buzz says it’ll be an all-new cast, not some lame Jim and Pam-based deal.

Now, I’m a fan of The Office, but I do think overkill can destroy not only the spinoff, but the original.

The US version of The Office is already a spinoff of a much more brilliant BBC version of the show, penned by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, who are currently laboring on a third season of Extras, from the sound of things.

The US version nearly bombed due to overblown US portrayals, and it was only in the second season, when the comedy style became a bit more restrained and subtle that the show began to catch on with US audiences.

But another version of The Office? Definitely overkill.

Sure, it would be an all-new cast. Yes, I understand that series cast members like Steve Carell and company are becoming hot properties and maintaining the cast may quickly become too spendy in the long term.

Yet, is the answer really a substandard spin-off?

Already, names being cast about to headline a second Office are the likes of Ed O’Neill, Mike Myers and Jim Carrey.

First, I doubt Carrey would do it, that Myers would be good at it, or that O’Neill would be well-suited to the role. Better to go with Carell’s Comedy Central pal, Stephen Colbert and capture lightning in a bottle for a second time. The only real question is whether he’d be willing to walk away from a guaranteed hit like The Colbert Report to live in the shadow of comparison that’s sure to hang over any second Office series.

In the end, it would be better to just pony up to the current cast on renewal, set an end-date for the series, and write with that in mind. Which means it’s more likely that before long, NBC’s sitcom lineup will look like CBS’s CSI line-up:

Mondays: The Office: Birmingham
Tuesdays: The Office: Ames
Wednesdays: The Office: Portland
Thursdays: The Office
Fridays: My Name Is The Office

It certainly wasn’t a question about Nike golf clubs that caused French president Nicolas Sarkozy to walk out of tonight’s interview with CBS News’ 60 Minutes interview, conducted by Lesley Stahl.

Instead, it was just another case of CBS News stepping over the line of respect for a conservative, a line they would never have crossed had the interview been with a liberal like previous French president Jacques Chirac.

Chirac, subject of many a glowing 60 Minutes interview, was a socialist/communist and more than willing to play along with the US media’s game of, “Let’s embarrass President Bush.” Simply for the crime of being a conservative, 60 Minutes pulled its ambush style of journalism of the French president, with Stahl taking a combative tone and finally asking questions about his marriage to his wife, which was on shaky ground at the time and from whom he ultimately filed for divorce two weeks later.

Of course, 60 Minutes ran the piece Sunday to make the French president look as bad as possible. Anyone thinking his treatment has nothing to do with his conservative viewpoint needs to ask themselves why 60 Minutes never pressed Bill Clinton that hard about Juanita Broaddrick.

A well-intentioned Oprah Winfrey recently found out a school she has helped found and fund in South Africa has been hit with allegations of sexual and physical abuse by school staff. The talk-show queen, who I really do think meant well, did the right thing recently by going to the school to confront the allegations, accepting responsibility in the case for trusting the wrong people.

News24/Rapport is reporting:

The TV talk-show queen has visited her school at Henley-on-Klip near Vereeniging at least twice in the past few weeks, after allegations that one of the matrons fondled a girl and that other pupils had been physically abused.

Oprah gave the girls her personal telephone number, her e-mail address and her postal address so that they could contact her at any time, day or night.

Apart from the matron apparently involved, Oprah sent the principal, a Dr Mzimane, and at least one other matron on leave two weeks ago. Only the principal was on paid leave.

A parent told Rapport on Saturday evening that the abuse had visibly upset Oprah. She had felt guilty because she had trusted the principal and the matron.

“I trusted her (Dr Mzimane). When I appointed her, I thought she was passionate about the children of Africa.

While the public display of tears is of little interest, the important thing to Hollywood Idiocy is that Oprah is not hiding the problem or going on the defense or lawyering up: she’s putting the parties responsible for alleged abuse on leave and dealing with a very difficult issue.

While more may come to the surface in the future on this issue, HollywoodIdiocy is not above giving credit where credit is due, and any celebrity who deals as forthrightly with scandal as Oprah seems to be doing here is welcome at our poker tables any time.

It hasn’t even happened yet and already HollyLibs are preparing for it like the second coming … of Ishtar. That’s right, the Hollywood screenwriters are about to go on strike … again.

Now, at issue are legitimate concerns. Studios are making tons off new revenue streams like DVD sales, cellphone deliveries, iPod sales and so forth; and the writers responsible for all that downloadable IP aren’t exactly getting their cut. That’s wrong.

But beware! Does anyone remember the consequences the last time HollyWriters went on strike? Hollywood proved it could adapt by developing an all-new, writer-less form of TV: reality program.

Some of the shows launched back then still survive to this day, including the one that nearly started it all, at least on network television: Survivor. Also still around are summer fare like Big Brother. And their progeny have littered network schedules ever since, to the chagrin of the creators of scripted dramas and comedies.

In fact, only in the last couple years have scripted shows really started to overcome the reality show challenge. Shows like Heroes and Lost and 24 and Prison Break have won back all the momentum lost during the last big writers strike.

I’m not saying the battle’s not worth fighting; it is. But beware of taking it all the way to a strike; beware of the very real risks of stretching out such a strike for too long.

Studios, too, need to beware of becoming too unreasonable in withholdiing the writers’ fair share of new revenue streams. Face is, studio bosses, without writers, you’re screwed into the corner of airing lots of sports, reality shows and other such fare. While much of it may indeed draw ratings, what must be kept in mind is even reality TV has a saturation point, and while a brief revival may help, it’s not a long-term solution.

Ratings of network TV has declined steadily since the last time the writers went on an extended strike. Deal fairly with them and either prevent the strike or keep it brief by dealing fairly.

Otherwise, folks just may stay tuned to their iPods, PS3s, Web browsers and endless supply of DVD libraries far longer than you think. The audience may indeed be hard to win back, once they realize home much other entertainment is out there to be had, and how little they actually need to find out whether the cheerleader will continue to be saved on Heroes, or whether House will ever settle on a new team of doc interns, or whether Losties will ever truly be… Found.

British restaurateur and reality show star chef Gordon Ramsey has another season of nightmares ahead of him. Despite being in the only interesting time slot on Wednesdays - between Bionic Woman and Private Practice, as well as an aging Criminal Minds - Fox’s US version of Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares has increased its ratings share every week it has aired so far.

The show centers around Ramsey helping restaurant owners transform their once-great business back to their former glory after falling into a state of health-code-violating catastrophes. It’s like a Food Network program on steroids.

With its solid ratings performance, Kitchen Nightmares on Fox earned one of the earliest renewals of the infant new season; 10 more episodes for a second season were ordered this week by Fox. Ramsey is currently busy filming the next season of Hell’s Kitchen, his other Fox ratings-grabber.

As well as things are going for chef Ramsey on television, it’s a wonder he has time to still be a chef and run his restaurants, although he can definitely afford Girard Perregaux wristwatches.

No word on scheduling yet. But not renewing the well-performing show would have been the idiocy on this one. Fortunately, Fox doesn’t ALWAYS cancel EVERY good series.

Just most of them.

Cupid, the ABC TV comedy-drama from 1998-99, was given too short a season in the eyes of many fans who fell in love with the 15-episode series that was canceled by the network immediately after its Valentine’s Day airing.

But now, series creator Rob Thomas, now better known for former UPN/CW drama Veronica Mars, is getting a second shot at the series. The premise centers around a paroled patient from a mental hospital who believes himself to be Cupid, the god of love, who was cast out from Mount Olympus for doing a poor job, and must unite or reunite 100 perfect couples to earn his way back into the Greek pantheon.

As originally conceived, the show starred Jeremy Piven as Cupid and Paula Marshall as his skeptical therapist. Thomas has revealed in multiple interviews that the show will be entirely recast when it is remade, with an eye toward making the concept a bit more accessible to the audience and turning it into a romantic anthology series, ala Love Boat. At least it’s not a remake of the somewhat cheesier HOTEL series ABC once aired, newly relocated at the classy Rio Las Vegas.

There’s no word on casting yet, but as Thomas has a development deal with ABC currently, expect the show to get a long look next spring when the network starts assembling its fall 2008 lineup. For me, this show was a personal favorite the year it aired and although Piven and Marshall will be missed, I think we can trust the series creator who discovered Kristen Bell to find appealing, younger replacements when the new version in cast.

It looks like Hugh Laurie will have three new apprentice doctors to torture this season on his hit Fox drama, HOUSE M.D., not two as originally planned. Although series originals Jennifer Morrison, Jesse Spencer and Omar Epps remain on the show in new capacities, online sources indicate the network has settled on Kal Penn, Olivia Wilde and Peter Jacobson as Dr. House’s new playmates and sounding boards.

In the episodes aired to date, House has made candidates for the open positions endure reality-show style trials in order to “survive the next rounds of cuts.” About the only humiliation not endured to date is House demanding they all wear baby clothes while performing surgery - but that portion of the storyline isn’t over yet, so you never know!

In reality, producers had a handful of actors they were seriously considering for different roles, but wanted to test their on-screen chemistry with Laurie before committing to any casting decisions.

A New York personal injury lawyer might be required to recover the damages done to Ben Stiller’s career after his latest film, The Heartbreak Kid, a Peter and Bobby Farrelly remake of the 1970s Neil Simon-penned comedy, debuted in second place behind Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s family comedy, The Game Plan.

Typically, family-rated comedies have always done better at the box office than R-rated fare, but the Farrelly Brothers have made careers out of exceeding expectations for R-rated gross-out comedies, as has Stiller. Not this time, though, as the former WWE champion’s family comedy, in its second week of release, outpaced the first-week bow of The Game Plan.

The Game Plan scored $16.3M to take first at the box office this weekend, while The Heartbreak Kid took in only $14M. Touchstone Pictures had hoped for a $17M debut for the Farrelly-Stiller flick, according to published reports on LA Weekly, Variety and various other online sources.

While the music industry isn’t exactly Hollywood, necessarily, record companies today have proved they’ve gone insane. And because their lawyers front celebrities, juries get blinded by the stars and suddenly justice isn’t blind, it’s got star-struck 20/20 eyesight.

I’m writing, of course, about Brainard, MN, woman Jammie Thomas, who was found guilty today of violating copyright law and was ordered to pay the filthy-rich record industry approximately $9,250 per song for 24 songs … roughly $220K in total financial penalties, though that’s not an exact figure. Sounds like a woman who’s gonna need a cash advance… and then some!

Defense attorneys claim Jammie was not the responsible party, attributing the acts to either a hacker or family member. But the jury bought the prosecution’s case.

Now, yes, common sense tells us all that downloading music and other copyrighted material for profit is bad, bad, bad and evil, evil, evil. Artists ought to profit from their work.

But is going after private citizens like Jammie the answer? The music industry has something like 26,000 lawsuits pending against individuals just like Jammie, and spendy lawyers who want to be paid, too. In fact, the music industry is probably losing money pressing this issue against 26,000 private citizens, because I’m sure their $500 to $1,000 an hour lawyers make the cost recovery laughable.

And can they actually collect from Jammie? A $220,000 settlement from a Brainard, MN, woman of modest- to middle-class means? Not likely. Even if they garnished the 30-year-old woman’s wages over the next 35 years of her working life before retirement, I doubt they’d collect the full amount. They’ve also likely ruined her employability for life, as well, in all likelihood.

Over 24 songs? That’s not just ridiculous, it’s idiotic.

Here’s a better, more sensible idea: Order her to 10 years probation. As terms of that probation, she must only buy music in the future from iTunes.com or other legal download sites, and must never install a file-sharing software on her computer again.

Back that up with a suspended 11-month jail term, which can be invoked each and every time she violates the terms of this probation.

And charge her a year’s wages in punitive damages, no more, no less. Amount to be determined by the job she holds at the time of conviction. Allow her the time of her probation - 10 years - to pay it off in full; if she pays it off sooner, she could apply to have probation lifted early.

That would be an amount she could conceivably pay and wouldn’t permanently ruin her life. If she behaved, it would be over in as little as five years; if she was ever convicted a second time on the same charge, the charge level could grow from a misdemeanor to a gross misdemeanor. On a third conviction, perhaps a felony would be appropriate.

And can you imagine explaining THAT to prison inmates?

JAMMIE: Why you in here?

DOTTIE: Killed my husband because he was cheating on me. You?

JAMMIE: I, umm... downloaded a couple Britney Spears discs.

DOTTIE: Britney? Girl, you ain't in here for Run DMC? You my #($*@ now!

Not a way to impress fellow inmates in ‘Da Big House.

But I suspect a one-time offender wouldn’t be very likely to re-offend. Especially when a decent 160GB music and video iPod Classic only costs $349 or so, and on iTunes, each tune is $0.99.

Granted, some may consider a buck per tune a bit pricey, but you can buy an entire CD and put it on your iPod at no extras cost because it’s yours - you bought the CD. And that’s a lot cheaper than $9,250 per song. By a long shot.

* Photo credit: Jammie Thomas exiting court. (AP Photo/Julia Cheng)