"My shirtless photo-shoot days are behind me," Mario Lopez tells PEOPLE in a bitter blow to beefcake.

"My TV projects are my main priority," he says. "And no, you will never see me host Extra without a shirt."

Still, to every rule there's an exception – in this case, Nip/Tuck.

Lopez says he is "thrilled" to be reprising the role of Dr. Mike Hamoui on the cable series, with Dr. Mike moving to Los Angeles – where he can once again gain the attention of the ab-admiring Dr. Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) in the locker room.

"A small spoiler," says Lopez. "Dr. Mike might not be taking anymore showers at the gym with Christian, but he will lose his shirt."

Thank God: a reprieve! America, did we even know what we had before it had been briefly lost? From now on, no one is to ask questions in the rare event that Lopez goes barechested, lest the skittish actor be moved to cover up. Like a beautiful, Naired deer that could be spooked by the merest side-by-side Photoshop, Lopez is not ours any longer. He belongs to the wild.

• Mario Lopez: No More Going Shirtless [People]

But before any of O'Donnell's many detractors announce their deep satisfaction at watching the feathered national symbol taking several hungry chunks out of the outspoken Iraq War critic's face, we'd first like to remind them that no one got off more from the sequence than Rosie herself, for whom the near-fatal eagle-pecking was just the manifestation of a lifelong fantasy that began the time a nine-year-old Rosie spent the night trapped beneath the covers with a family of frantic pigeons, armed only with their tiny beaks and a desperate will to survive.

• NIP/TUCK [Rosie.com]

While the photo to the left, taken Thursday night at the Swarovski Fashion Rocks concert, may not be as shocking as some of the backless numbers in the Mail article, there's no doubt in our minds from these images that Richardson has dropped a significant amount of weight—something that wouldn't typically render us too concerned, save for the possibility that Rosie O'Donell might press her face into a hot waffle iron, too, in a desperate attempt to get her co-star to consume some carbs.

[Photo: Getty Images]

• Skeletal Joely Richardson shows sign of strain in latest red carpet shock [Daily Mail]

"Nip/Tuck" creator/executive producer Ryan Murphy said that O'Donnell will be returning for "several episodes" of the show's upcoming fifth season, starting with Episode 4.

As for talk about a potential spinoff featuring her character, Dawn Budge, Murphy said, "The character was so instantly popular. We've spoken about (a spinoff); it's an ongoing discussion."

Having already tasted the forbidden fruits of resident slutty surgeon Dr. Christian Troy, we imagine the writers have begun to brainstorm a whole new selection of partners, sexual positions, and animal hides on which to perfect them. Whether or not her horny escapades could sustain a spinoff series remains to be seen—but having just watched her Price is Right dreams evaporate, we can think of no better consolation prize than to portray a woman addicted to lipo and gigolos in The Days and Nights of Dawn Budge.

• O'Donnell signs on for more 'Nip/Tuck' [cnn.com]

"Surgeons and hospitals have been a big part of our lives. We were always told that she would have to have more surgery when she got older. The time has come," the actress revealed. [...]

Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy said: "It was sad, but Joely came before her character." [...]

Miss Richardson... has also dated her co-star John Hensley, who curiously plays her teenage son Matt, despite being only 12 years younger than her. [...]

At the age of 24 she embarked on a fling with Scottish landowner Archie Stirling who was more than twice her age and also married to actress Diana Rigg. [...]

In 1992, she married [the teenager's father, Tim] Bevan, co-founder of Working Title, the studio behind Bridget Jones's Diary.[...]

Bevan left her for 24-year-old Amy Gadney and Miss Richardson filed for divorce in 1997. A fling with Robbie Williams...followed.

We're not entirely sure why the Daily Mail chose to end a depressing story about an actress forced to leave the work she loves over her daughter's serious illness with a meanspirited laundry list of her failed and sometimes misguided past affairs. That said...She dated Matt? Seriously? Our TV watching universe hasn't been turned this oedipally upside-down since the soul-scarring day we learned the ugly truth about Greg and Mrs. Brady.

• Joely quits Nip/Tuck to take care of her ill daughter [DailyMail.co.uk]

So far, no one from the church has contacted FX or Murphy. Repeated phone calls to the church by the Los Angeles Times were not returned.

"I think I would have serious questions about whether we want to essentially go to battle against any religion. I don't think that's where any business ought to be," [FX president and general manager John ] Landgraf said. "The flip side of that is that if Ryan's writing something that's creatively valid and it's creatively balanced, I don't think it serves the interests of the religion to somehow personally attack Ryan, or me, or one of the actors. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I guess time will tell."

It's a shrewd strategy for Landgraf to warn the notoriously touchy Church that nothing would be accomplished by attacking their valid and balanced portrayal, hoping that such a challenge will almost certainly catch the attention Scientology's Truth In Media Technicians** and prompt a response; he'll laugh quietly to himself when a bullhorn-wielding Jenna Elfman, waiting for him by the entrance of the Fox Tower parking garage, launches into the litany of accusations in her Baby Rape Inventory***, knowing that this week's episode of Nip/Tuck is going to virtually promote itself.

[*This is exactly the kind of gratuitous punchline that FX will strenuously avoid.]
[** This one too.]
[*** At this point, there's no way we could avoid the too-easy Jenna Elfman joke. We are so weak.]

• 'Nip/Tuck' warms up to Scientology [LAT]