First, a closer look at the "sexy" ads in question, which include pull-quotes suggesting just how much closer potential viewers will get to the cool kids' table. Watching this show is so dangerous! Your parents will have nightmares just thinking about the (sort of) short skirts Blair wears! Do the nasty!

Sadly, progressively heightening a show's sex appeal with ever-so-slightly hotter ads might not be the wisest move. After Buffy got the shove-off to the vintage UPN, Sarah Michelle Gellar was photographed posing in that trademark Cosmo cover stance, suggestively, maybe, possibly, on the verge of masturbation. One season later, and the series' ashes lived on in that icky spin-off Angel. As for Beverly Hills: 90210, the standard smiley group shot used in promos rarely veered far off course. But once Season 10 wheezed its final pointless breath, Donna and her new boobs sat front and center, Kelly was forced to be groped by New Brandon Replacement #47, and Steve Sanders was permitted to play "sexy" while raising a risqué, black denim-clad leg around New Brenda Replacement #287. And the poor OC decided that turning Marissa into a lesbian wasn't quite sordid enough, so the previously wholesome ads ended, along with the series, with uber-tanned Mischa pushing whatever boobage she had together in the sand, while Ryan appeared ready to give her the old in-and-out from behind (Chino-style!).

Oops. After the sight of Rachel and Monica passionately making out giving each other a friendly peck failed to increase ratings for Dirt, some genius thought the image of Courteney Cox covered in actual dirt (get it?!) would do the trick. But rather than getting new viewers all hot and bothered, everyone just felt, well, dirty (get it?! Sigh.) Finally, the recently canceled L Word used a rather obvious promotional image by shoving all the chic lipstick lesbians together in one big ol' nude orgy party. The problem with this image? See the previous sentence (specifically, the "canceled" part).

• OMG! CHECK OUT THE SEXY NEW 'GOSSIP GIRL' ADS! [People]

· Hard-to-kill Heroes cheerleader and Official Friend of the Dolphins Hayden Panettiere joins the cast of teen comedy Daydream Nation, possibly opposite a Culkin. [Variety]
· FX has abruptly decided not to order any more episodes of Dirt or The Riches because of the strike's interruption of their production, but hasn't yet ruled out the possibility that they might renew the shows for third seasons that will have to awkwardly resolve all the plot threads cut in the middle of this abbreviated run. [THR]
· CBS is its moving Survivor brand into fitness products, starting with something called "Supercharged Sunflower Seeds," a snack undoubtedly rich in the nutrients one needs to live while stranded on a deserted island or trapped in a remote part of China. [Variety]

After weathering a flatly written exchange in which Aniston's lesbian character tells Cox, "This is no way to live! You don't deserve to be alone," (oh, the bitter irony), then some innuendo about past dalliances between the characters (four implied times!), and one brushed off ass-grab (easy there, lesbian tiger), we finally get the kiss: A closed mouth cutaway unlikely to moisten the panties of even the show's most incontinent viewers. Have a look, trying not to sigh too loudly over this squandered opportunity to exploit ten seasons' worth of crackling, Sapphic sexual tension.

• Dirt - Courteney and Jennifer kiss! [YouTube]

"Is it 'Bring a Jackal to Work Day'? " Lucy [Cox] says when she sees Tina Harrod (Ms. Aniston), her longtime frenemy and editor of a rival gossip magazine in her office.

Tina fights fire with fake warmth, calling Lucy "sweetie" and mixing solicitude with salacious innuendo. (They kiss on the lips, but briskly.) The finale, which ties up loose ends with over-the-top drama, should be a blast. Yet like Ms. Cox, Ms. Aniston seems to be sleepwalking through her part, not so much enjoying it as enduring it.

We suppose that those truly obsessed with the idea of a proper Monica-on-Rachel hook-up can pray that Dirt gets picked up for another season and Aniston becomes a recurring character; maybe with the pressure of a possible cancellation off, the actresses will allow themselves to relax enough to finally give their dedicated fans the spit-swapping, nonpenetrative televised encounter they've desperately craved since those deliciously tense moments back in their Friends kitchen.

• Frenemies Forever in the Game of Fame [NY Times]
• Courtney Cox Doesn't Want You To Watch Her Make Out With Jennifer Aniston For The Wrong Reasons [Defamer]

"There is no tongue and it is really not a big deal to kiss," the 42-year-old actress tells syndicated TV entertainment show "Access Hollywood" in an interview set to air Wednesday.

"I am not saying, `Don't tune in to watch Jennifer on the show,' because she is fantastic and you get to see us together again," Cox says. "But if you think it is just about a major make-out session, you will be disappointed."

We hope that the executives at FX figure out a fitting way to punish their uncooperative star for trying to derail their ratings-attracting stunt; demanding a three episode arc in which she and Friends sibling David Schwimmer explore the darkest, kinkiest recesses of their sexualities should teach her a much-needed lesson about interfering with the promotion of their series.

• Cox: Aniston TV Smooch Is No `Big Deal' [AP]
• Previously: The One Where Monica And Rachel Finally Make Out A Little [Defamer]

Call them Friends with benefits. You already know that when Jennifer Aniston guests on the March 27 season finale of Courteney Cox's FX drama Dirt, she'll be playing her bosom buddy's archenemy, a rival tabloid editor. But what I've learned — muahaha, exclusively! — is that Aniston's character is a lesbian. What's more, she won't just mouth off to Cox's tightly wound counterpart, she's going to share a liplock with her. An FX rep declined to comment, but Joey Tribbiani had this to say: "Yeah, baby!"

For a cable network so committed to pushing the envelope by exploring exciting new sideboob and strap-on sodomy frontiers, a lesbian-lite kiss seems decidedly safe, even if it satisfies the third most popular Friends slash-fic scenario behind Joey-on-Chandler or Ugly-Naked-Guy-on-Ross couplings. Perhaps FX has one of their edgy surprises in store for us (we've still not had a good night of sleep since Rosie O'Donnell was ravaged on that zebra-skin rug onNip/Tuck), and they'll find a way to work Cox's signature vibrator into that innocent liplock.

• Exclusive: Aniston-Cox Smooch Exposed! [TVGuide.com]
• Previously: FX President Hopes You'll Stick Around Until 'Dirt' Gets Better [Defamer]

· The Soup proposes yet another way that FX can introduce a little more lightheartedness into dreary tabloid drama Dirt.
· Paula Abdul's flack blames her slurry, wildly gesticulating morning show performance on a cocktail of exhaustion and technical difficulties.
· Soon-to-be L.A. resident David Beckham consulted BFF Tom Cruise before agreeing to take $250 million from our local soccer club; once Cruise assured his pal that he'd still have plenty of money left over after he paid Los Angeles' mandatory 30-percent Celebrity Centre tax, Beckham was ready to sign his contract and start making his moving plans.
· Survivor is making further strides in diversifying its cast, choosing only 10 Californians for its upcoming Fiji Islands installment, as compared to the 13 they signed up for the Race Wars season.
· L.A. finally gets its own mystery stench a few days after New York's goes out of style. Typical.
· Our gloryhole-inspecting siblings over at Fleshbot have spent the week porning it up at the AVN Expo in Vegas.

Having a new series draw critical praise and high ratings is ideal, he said, but if he had to choose, at the end of the day the man wants a hit.

The "Dirt" premiere was the second highest-rated debut in FX's history, mainly due to Cox's star wattage, but its tough to believe the viewership will hold. Landgraf said he expects the second episode to drop in the ratings as well, and possibly the third episode as well.

One point of criticism Landgraf conceded is that "Dirt" lacks a sense of humor about itself. That was one of his notes too, he said, and starting at about the fifth episode, the show significantly improves.

"I really love the show from about midway through the season on," he said. "Whether the audience sticks around that long, we'll see."

Addressing the note about the troubling self-seriousness of a show about celebrity gossip, the president promised that critics who make it to Episode Five would be pleased by a recalibration of Dirt's attitude, when Courtney Cox's take-no-famous-prisoner's tabloid editor hilariously "catches" schizophrenia from her mentally ill photographer, kicking off a running gag where she hallucinates that her vibrator comes to life each time she fires it up, becoming a wisecracking sidekick with whom she can dish about Jennifer Aniston's love life.

• The 'Dirt' Panel [Critical Eye]
• Previously: Defamer TV Preview: 'Dirt' [Defamer]

I just watched the first 2 eps of the new FX show, Dirt. It's completely preposterous, but should get some of the Nip/Tuck crowd, I suppose - it's the same kind of 'guilty pleasure'; shamefully watchable, blah blah blah.

There's lots of belabored parallels to real tabloid stories (sex tapes, lots of coke, etc.), and an awkward mixing of real celebs and fake ones, which never quite works (i.e. someone will list a bunch of names, like "You know, Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Holt McLaren..."). David Fincher, the director, is in it, for some reason, and there are multiple scenes of a very thin Courtney Cox masturbating with a vibrator. In envelope-pushing cable TV fashion, "shit" is every other word and there's a handful of ass shots. The highlight of the whole show, though, is former L.A. Laker Rick Fox, as a Los Angeles basketball star, getting sodomized in fairly graphic FX detail by a girl with a strap-on. Like, there are thrusts, and he's bent over a hot tub.

The "Uncensored" section of the show's official website promises an online area called "Dirt Uncovered with David Arquette," but offers no hint of what behind-the-scenes delights might eventually be found there. Our fingers are crossed for uncomfortable segments in which Cox's goofball, co-producing househusband tries to offer helpful input into the star's crucial vibrator choice, but instead accidentally reveals a little too much about her real-life sex toy preferences, letting slip, "Oh, don't pick that one, it's waaay smaller than the one you use at home."

• Dirt [FX]

THR's Ray Richmond reports that the website of TV writer/producer Matthew Carnahan was hijacked by hapless "Middle Eastern extremists," who replaced Carnahan's homepage (still down the last time we checked in) with these rather unpleasant images of death and strife from the region and the message, "If You Stop War We Will Be(sic) Stop Hacking." But while the man who will soon broker on-set peace between real-life couple David Arquette and Courteney Cox-Arquette on FX's upcoming Dirt undoubtedly has valuable insights into the crisis in the Middle East, Richmond points out that the hackers probably meant to target Matthew Michael Carnahan, the next entry down on the IMDb search page, the writer of terrorism drama The Kingdom. Then again, this could all just be a ploy by edgy publicists at FX to stir up some viral buzz for their series, "The outrageous celebrity tabloid workplace comedy the terrorists don't want you to see."

• Some Web Servers Are More Secure Than Others [Past Deadline]
• Previously: 'United 93' Message Boards Hacked [Defamer]