Glee has moved to the head of the class, so to speak; after taking a load of herbal diet supplements, the cast was overjoyed to hear they’ve already been approved by Fox for a second season. Word is, terrific merchandising sales on the two soundtrack albums and the first half-season collection of episodes on DVD haven’t hurt the freshman show at all, and played a role in the early renewal.

How well the show will wear over time will be the next big test; NBC’s Chuck was a hot show in its first season and only barely survived to a third season, though it is definitely a welcomed respite from an otherwise dreary NBC lineup this season, now that Chuck is back!

Hopefully, Glee will wear well, and will be wise enough to graduate its cast off the show, and cast wisely their replacements, each and every season. No one wants to see these 22-year-olds playing 15 when they’re 26-year-olds playing 19 and somehow still in high school, like the Sweathogs.

Fox’s Kevin Reilly isn’t saying much, but has admitted that should Conan O’Brien become “available,” his network might just jump back into the late night game. Fox has been without a serious competitive late night show since axing, what was it… Chevy Chase?

While the whole NBC blow-up is enough to make anyone need the best cholesterol medication available, in the end I think O’Brien is the funniest of the three. Best of luck, Conan!

Michael C. Hall, start of Showtime’s hit drama Dexter, in which he plays a serial killer who works as a Miami blood spatter analyst, has been diagnosed with cancer, according to multiple sources; fortunately for the 38-year-old, it is Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a highly treatable form of cancer from which many patients fully recover and remain cancer-free, and he will not require exotic treatments like glucomannan.

“I feel fortunate to have been diagnosed with an imminently treatable and curable condition, and I thank my doctors and nurses for their expertise and care,” Hall said in a press release.

Hall will attend both the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards, and so long as there are no setbacks in his treatment schedule, is on track to return to his role as Dexter Morgan later this year, when the show is scheduled to begin shooting its fifth season.

Conan O’Brien offered NBC an ultimatum this week: move the Tonight Show later than it has aired for 60 years, and I’m walking away. While he hopes NBC will choose to keep The Tonight Show in its traditional spot with him as host, O’Brien’s ultimatum is viewed by some network execs as his resignation papers. This means NBC will effectively have given Conan only seven months on the Tonight Show after a 16-year partnership.

If NBC boots Conan, Jay Leno would be free to return to the Tonight Show, but as damaged goods; he’s already the butt of national jokes that paint him as the reason NBC is now viewed as a “minor-league” network on par with The CW and MyNetworkTV. NBC trashed five hours of scripted programming last spring to launch The Jay Leno Show, simply to hang on to a relationship with the aging comic; now, they could be trashing the future of The Tonight Show by losing out on its natural successor in O’Brien.

Sure, O’Brien is joking about selling the best weightloss products in a matter of weeks, but the truth is that he will immediately become the focus of a bidding war for his services, with Fox being the most natural suitor.

NBC muffed the Carson-to-Letterman transition, opting for Leno about 16 years ago; now they’ve muffed the Leno-to-O’Brien transition. Nitwits.

Word has hit the street that Sony has put the kibosh on Spider-Man 4, releasing director Sam Raimi, star Tobey Maguire and the rest of the existing Spidey cast from all future contractual obligations to the Spidey franchise. So instead of one more go-round with Maguire, Dunst and company under Raimi’s direction, Sony will back-peddle and allow a new director and cast to start over.

Considering the vast success of the first three Spider-Man films, it’s unlikely the new franchise will attempt to retell Spider-Man’s origin story, which took up much of the first film, but an early version of the prospective script, penned at this point by Jamie Vanderbilt, will toss Peter back to his high school years and cover territory missed between Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2. However, any rumors that Parker’s biggest enemy in the new flick will be severe acne are patently untrue.

Sony is currently touting director Marc Webb, whose biggest achievement to date is (500) Days of Summer, a rom-com that was barely a box office blip a few months ago. However, the studio liked his ability to capture the angst of youth, which is a major player in the teenage Peter Parker’s life.

No word on whether some supporting actors, like J.K. Simmons, who played J. Jonah Jameson to a “T,” will reprise his role in the reboot, but he’s one bit player who I’d love to see return and would be hard to replace.

Of course, there are any number of young actors in Hollywood who could take on the roll, and they need to look about 15 years old at the time the Spidey reboot launches in 2012 – one year later than Spider-Man 4 was set to debut. That means kids who are no older than 16 or 17 right now, at most. One prominent name that springs to mind for the role of Peter Parker is current Glee cast member Kevin McHale, who plays wheelchair-bound Artie on Glee. However, McHale is already 22 right now and will only look older in two years. Plus he’s contractually bound to Glee.

I’m sure Webb or whoever eventually wins the reigns of the franchise will find apt replacements; the other big change to the franchise is that Sony wants the Spider-Man reboot to be done completely in Avatar-esque 3D… meaning your friendly neighborhood wallcrawler will be swinging right at you in a couple years’ time.