Congratulations to Sarah Silverman and Christina Applegate for being shortlistedby the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for the 2008 Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

Three season pre-airs are circulating the web. Look for True Blood, , Do Not Disturb and Fringe.

Mary Tyler Moore returns to TV with a role on Lipstick Jungle. The TV icon is going to play mother to Brooke Shield’s character Wendy Healy.

Her premiere episode will be on September 24 on NBC. From there, she’ll wreak havoc on Brooke Shield’s idea of “having it all.”

Britney’s Dad has been selling her cars… now she’s auctioning the clothes she wore on her appearance on How I Met Your Mother. However, proceeds will be going to charity.

Are you an SNL junkie? Then check out an interesting behind the scenes account of the genius — some would say insanity — of creating an “intelligent” comedy.

There are the weird brainstorming sessions, the obvious camraderie, the sometimes ridiculous production costs (like spending $10,000 on a hotdog costume for a routine that never airs), and the underlying current of competition, intrigue, and pressure.

Watch out for Mariah Carey on Saturday Night Live this weekend. She will be replacing Janet Jackson, who’s done with the flu.

This is Mariah’s first SNL appearance in over 10 years. She’ll be singing a few tracks from her new album E=MC2, which hits the stores on April 15.

Britney Spears prepares for her first TV appearance after that disastrous MTV performance. She will be guest starring on How I Met Your Mother.

This isn’t the first time she’ll be on a TV comedy (though one can argue that her life has become a comedy). She played a conservative TV host in Will & Grace (never thought we’d use “conversative” and “Britney” in one sentence). She and ex Kevin Federline also had a short-lived reality show, called (prophetically) Chaotic.

The Nielsen Media Research announced the Top 10 TV shows of 2007.

Leading the pack is the Fox show American Idol, which got a stunning 17.3 rating. It’s the second year in the row for Simon and company, who — despite a really bad selection of contestants — still got the audience hooked. However the numbers are slipping, and if the new season brings another batch of losers, who knows if it’ll still keep the attention of a disgruntled and more discriminating audience.

Another reality shows secured the next top spots: Dancing with the Stars, which got only slightly higher ratings than NBC’s Sunday Night Football. CSI, one of CBS’ best shows, still got in the top 10, but slipped from number 4 to number 7; CSI Miami slipped from number 7 to number 10.

Some new shows got into the Top !0, like Grey’s Anatomy and Samantha Who? House, another Fox hit, made it to the list.

Specials like the Academy Awards and the Superbowl were also part of the top 10 most-watched shows of the year.

Seth MacFarlane’s furious. The man behind “Family Guy” had stopped work on the series because of the on-going writer’s strike. But instead of airing reruns, the Fox network executives have decided to proceed with the show without him.

“It would just be a colossal dick move if they did that,” said MacFarlane. Though the contract allows to continue the show without him — got to love those lawyers — he says (rather meaningfully) that this would affect the creative direction and drive away viewers.

“They’ve never done anything like this before, in which they’ve said, ‘We’re going to finish a show without you,’ ” he said. “It’s really going to be unfortunate and damaging to our relationship if they do it.”

Welcome to the new Erati!!