First, the runners-up:

No. 10 – Rob & Amber, Survivor
No. 9 – Sara & Grissom, CSI
No. 8 – Ryan & Marissa, The O.C.
No. 7 – Trista & Ryan, The Bachelorette
No. 6 – Kate & Jack, Lost
No. 5 – Billy & Alison, Melrose Place
No. 4 – Clark & Lana, Smallville
No. 3 – Boris & Natasha, The Bullwinkle Show (ed. note: ???)

And the top two, excerpted from TV Guide:

No. 2 – Tom & Lynette, Desperate Housewives: She has him canned from her ad firm, hates mothering and almost cheats on him with a pizza guy. He, in turn, takes it like a tool as penance for lying about his secret kid. Forget Wisteria Lane’s occasional homicides, the real mystery here is why these two aren’t in therapy.

No. 1 – “Gizzie” (George & Izzie), Grey’s Anatomy: First off, could the combo name be any uglier? And secondly, ewww. It was like watching a faded prom queen and her slightly dim-witted brother get it on…at the expense of George’s marriage to Callie.

While we're a little shocked that Boris & Natasha made the list over, say, Hills villains Heidi & Spencer, we can't help but wish TV Guide had extended its expose to include characters from decades long since past. After all, everyone knows that Shirley and the Big Ragu were, like, sooo passé (all the cool kids 'shipped Laverne and Squiggy), and Donna's marriage on The Donna Reed Show? OMG, could she have been more of a Mary Sue?!

• TV Guide

While James' blonde co-star in grainy quasi-sex tape magic does admittedly have one hell of a (fake) rack, we fear this aspirational photo shoot most likely filmed in an effort to turn Blunt into the next Dirk Diggler and Dourdan into the next Buck Swope will flop — mainly due to that extraneous boat-climbing fellow with the overly tight Hawaiian trunks and Blunt's far-from-beautiful paunch.

[Photo credits: X17]

• POSH BLUNT'S TOPLESS BABES [The Sun]

• "CSI" Star Popped for Heroin, Coke, Ecstasy [TMZ]

In the case of Dourdan, an insider at the show insists that he and CSI execs "mutually agreed" to part ways for "creative reasons." However, a CBS mole claims the 41-year-old actor was essentially fired, adding that producers are trying to be "as supportive and protective" of him as possible by portraying the departure as mutual. That same mole wasn't willing to share the specific reason for Dourdan's ouster, except to say that it involves an "ongoing problem personal to Dourdan." [...]

Over at SVU, the situation surrounding Neal has become equally suspicious. On Tuesday, a show spokesperson confirmed to me exclusively that the actress would be vacating her role as ADA Casey Novak in what appeared to be a mutual decision. However, shortly after I posted that story, a show insider says an emotional Neal gathered the crew together on the set and informed them that she had just been fired.

Of course, more definite clues could arise once we get a better look at how the show's writers choose to dispatch their series regulars. We're reminded of a similarly acrimonious parting of Prison Break's Sarah Wayne Callies, whose gruesome demise involved the discovery of her character Sara's decapitated head in a box. Should we tune in to the season finale of CSI to find Marg Helgenberger running a black light over Dourdan's battered, limp body to get a better look at the tell-tale semen stains left after his fatal gang-raping, we'll know producers were not entirely broken up about the actor's departure.

• Exclusive: Were Dourdan and Neal (Gulp) Fired [TVGuide.com]

boomp3.com

CSI star Marg Helgenberger would like you to believe that she's busy reading the shit out of Richard Price's latest novel, Lush Life. Yet in reality, hidden behind that dust cover is a copy of US Weekly, which is actually hiding a copy of Highlights magazine, which is also being used as a diversion for another magazine, Penthouse Forum.

[Photo Credit: X17]

· The Departed writer William Monahan will pen a true crime story based on an article about "a drug dealer who traded a prison sentence to go undercover at a maximum security hospital for the criminally insane." The piece will will appear in Playboy later this year: Look for the issue with either the politician-toppling hooker or supporting star of The Hills on the cover. [Variety]
· The boys from local sketch comedy troupe Summer of Tears have sold a screenplay, titled Beat Kip, to Paramount Vantage. Envious sketch comedy troupes are claiming the Tears boys used their past history as strippers to their self-promotional advantage. [THR]
· Sundance Channel, owned by CBS, NBC Universal and Robert Redford, may be up for sale, available for Rupert Murdoch to snatch up, hack the "Sun" prefix from its name, and replace its indie oasis mandate with 24-hour So You Think You Can Dance marathons. [THR]

It's taken me a bit of courage to actually fess up to what I've seen on the set of CSI:Miami, but I actually worked there for two years and saw first-hand almost 50 episodes being filmed. Caruso is without a doubt, the most tortured, saddest man-child/ actor I've ever seen in over 15 years of movie and tv-making. Everything you have heard is true, but worse.

He can't walk and talk at the same time (you should see him on stairs), requires dozens of takes for simplest line-readings (which as we all know, he can only do one way), and can't even put his CSI gloves on on-camera (always a time cut, just watch). He will cuss uncontrollably (often in front of a child actor) and blame everyone but himself for his inability to act. He used to hack up big loogies on the floor of the set, too, until a producer gently reminded him of sanitation and courtesy. Oh, and he re-writes every scene he is in, so he is totally to blame for the hackneyed one-liners. He will take anything the writers give him, and destroy it. And the sunglass bit is all his, a truly innovative contribution to his character. But as he said to us many times, "What should I do? I am a grown man with red hair."

We used to call the diet coke his "acting juice."

PS - He once asked the DP to make it seem like he was flying to the crime scene, explaining that Horatio is actually a mythical superhero. For Real.

For real, indeed! Thanks again to OnSetSnitch.
PREVIOUSLY: David Caruso Bullies Young Director Into Shooting Umpteenth Sunglasses Removal Scene

David Caruso asks [the show's director] when there will be a close up of [his] sunglasses - in every scene.

Here's the full, unedited text of the Popbitch item (typos/Anglo-isms theirs):

Just back from LA and was staying with a friend who's in Jericho. One of the scriptwriters for the show used to work on CSI: Miami and apparently David Caruso r4eally is the arse he appears. A new director was setting up a shot and as he was laying out the scene suggested that Caruso should walk through a door, into a room and pick up a bottle of something and open it etc. The producers took the tyro to one side and pointed out that "David gets a bit lost in props". Reasonably pointing out that it was quite a simple manoeuvre he was told that there was only a limited amount of time for the shoot and David didn't have the time to work out the meaning of the props. Gradually the action was whittled down to him just walking through the door and giving his line. To this the young director is once again taken to one side and it is explained to him that "David isn't very good with thresholds". He also asks when, in the scene, there will be a close up of the sunglasses - in every scene.

• Popbitch
• CSI Miami: David Caruso One Liners II: Sunglasses Edition [YouTube]

Billed as "CSI's Marcus Patrick," we're not sure if a one-episode-long arc on CSI Miami in 2005 (available for viewing on his official website reel) really warrants the possessive modifier. Still, Marcus is a successful daytime TV actor, currently making housewives and striking writers swoon on Days of Our Lives, and this recent shlong-brandishing on the cover of a major publication—like Lifetime movies, Enrique Iglesias, and Sex and the City, billed as "entertainment for women" and consumed primarily by gay men—is sure to be a boon to his career. (The uncropped cover and rest of the spread is over at Bossip.)

• For the Ladies [Bossip]
• [Playgirl - NSFW]

"Laughlin" fell 63 percent from lead-in "CSI" to post a 2.4 preliminary rating among adults 18 to 49 at 10 p.m., coming in last place. Moreover, the show lost 31 percent of its demo rating in its second half hour and was the lowest-rated program among the major broadcast networks for the night.

CBS is going to wait until after Sunday night's "Laughlin" airing in the show's regular time slot before making any decisions about its fate. But if you're working on the show, you might want to stop payment on the boat.

Naturally, such a spectacularly poor result invites second-guessing about the network's programming choices, especially considering CBS's early season struggles with its new series. We speak, of course, of their egregious passing over of Babylon Fields, whose horny zombies could have made a nice lead-out for CSI, allowing viewers to see what might happen if the hit procedural's corpses unzipped their body bags and reassumed their lives once their murders had been solved.

• 'Viva Laughlin' Craps Out [TV Week]

What do you make of the intensity of the fan reaction to Jorja's exit? Mendelsohn: It has been astounding. It's incredible how creative our fans are. We got two cases of chocolate covered insects with the message "CSI without Sara bugs us."

We got a bouquet of red, pink and white balloons with Hershey kisses and the message was, "Don't break our hearts, keep Jorja Fox on CSI." We got two large cases of Lifesavers with the message, "You were Sara's lifesaver, now be ours, keep Jorja Fox on CSI." They've been sending money in from all over the world [as part of the] Dollars for Sense campaign. One woman named Kim West from Northern Ireland, she and her friends sent in 60 pound notes, and she wrote a four page letter. It's just been overwhelming how many people love Jorja.

Did you go back to her and beg her to reconsider?
Mendelsohn: I had done everything that I could. But in the end, I respect Jorja. This is something that she wanted to do, and I would never stand in her way. She's coming back at some point anyway.

Reinforcing the story that leaving was Fox's decision alone and that the producers were powerless to stop their beloved star from following her creative muse is a savvy move; perhaps the misguided fans will take the hint and direct their next act of devotion towards the actress instead of the show's staff, like hiring a plane trailing a "JORJA! GO BACK TO CSI! WE LOVE YOU BUT WE'RE PRETTY SURE THIS IS THE BEST GIG YOU'LL EVER HAVE!" banner* to circle her house until she realizes the terrible career miscalculation she's just made.

[*OK, maybe they'll need to break that up across a couple of planes and banners.]

• Exclusive: CSI Boss Vows Jorja Fox is "Coming Back" [TVGuide.com]
• Previously: Potentially ill-advised career moves [Defamer]

Clad in leather biker gear, Dourdan violently grabbed our photog outside Hyde, who the actor had mistaken for another guy, and slammed him to the pavement several times, sending his head bouncing into concrete over and over again — all while his camera continued to roll.

The chaos began after Dourdan pulled up to the club on his Ducati motorcycle, and shouted at the photog to "get that f**king camera out of my face!" The photog obliged, pointing the camera to the ground — but Dourdan's rage continued to grow, and the cameraman kept the record button on just in case something happened. Moments later, something happened.

This regrettable incident is just another disturbing reminder of the dangers of being out in Hollywood after dark. Even in seemingly safe, well-populated areas like the sidewalks outside of trendy drinking establishments or the inside of world-famous comedy clubs, the possibility of a head-splitting, Lovitizian beatdown always looms.

• "CSI" Star Beats the Living Crap Out of TMZ Photog [TMZ]
• Previously: Today In Amazing Catfights: The Les Deux Parking Lot Brawl [Defamer]

As a rule, the sequel is never quite as satisfying as the original, but this follow-up to the YouTubes sensation "Seven Minutes and Fifteen Mind-Blowing Seconds Of David Caruso One-Liners," spotlighting only the times the dialogue-devouring star supplements his patented delivery by shielding his eyes from both the punishing Miami sun and his own actorly brilliance, has its own charms: note that just before the one minute mark, we're treated to a sequence in which Caruso bolts from the frame after he's done his bit, as if anxious to remind the director, "Now that...is how you end a cold open," before heading off in dogged pursuit of another line to murder.

• CSI Miami: David Caruso One Liners II: Sunglasses Edition [YouTube]

We're not exactly sure why the staff of CSI: NY needs a morale boost in early November (the ratings are good, and isn't that all anyone cares about? Are people still bummed about the dead body that turned up on their set?), but this flier hung in an admin building on the CBS Radford lot announces that star Gary Sinise and his Lt. Dan Band are going to rock his co-workers to a more positive outlook for the second straight year this Friday. According to their website, the band has "completed four tours for the USO and performs regulary [sic] for troops stationed around the world," but even cheering up military personnel surely doesn't carry the rich personal rewards of forcibly entertaining a mopey TV production crew.

• Lt. Dan Band [ltdanband.com]
• CSI: NY [CBS.com]

A man's body floated up near where a crew was filming a scene for the crime show "CSI: Miami," authorities said. The body washed up early Friday in Biscayne Bay at Bicentennial Park, which film crews were using as a helicopter staging ground for aerial shots of a fictional offshore investigation for the CBS show, police said.

A homeless man spotted the body and alerted an off-duty police officer who was working security on the set, police said. The body had no signs of injury, and the death was not considered suspicious, according to authorities.

"Unfortunately, it's not unusual during certain times of the year that people who have fallen in the bay, either homeless or people who were asleep or in some cases boaters who had a mishap, fall into the bay and turn up days later, said Detective Delrish Moss, a Miami police spokesman.

We don't even need to tell you that the new season of CSI: Miami premieres tonight, do we? It's too late for his Floridian victim, but now that he's clearly established an identifiable pattern of promotional homicides, we urge Bruckheimer's immediate apprehension; there's still time to prevent tomorrow night's planned mass slaying of a dozen high-priced escorts, whose freshly murdered bodies will be "accidentally" discovered in a Bellagio suite just in time for the first Fall broadcast of the original CSI series on Thursday.

• Whodunit? Body washes up near 'CSI: Miami' set [CNN.com]