In America, everyone just wants to be housewives. As true today as it was in 1958. As evidence, the season finale of Real Housewives of New Jersey won Tuesday night's ratings battle not just in cable, but in regular network television. OK, not in terms of sheer millions of viewers, but at least in terms of young adults. 3.48 million folks tuned in, earning the show a 6 share in 18-49ers, the highest of the night, from any show on the air at the time. Pretty remarkable. Also, pretty goddamned depressing. [Variety]

Poor, heart-faced Reese Witherspoon will soon be taking a deep dive into the horrifying annals of the pharmaceutical industry. Well, not that deep. She'll star in and produce the comedy Pharm Girl, about a wide-eyed young dreamer lady who gets beaten down, hilariously!, by the byzantine and morally corrosive machine that keeps people on unnecessary drugs for their restless legs because everyone wants money. Terrific. [THR]

Yay, we're gonna see it! We're gonna see the "stark" pre-WWI drama about a wicked boarding school directed by shock auteur Michael Haneke (the brilliant Cache, the unnecessary Funny Games)! Sony Pictures Classic has picked up American distribution rights for The White Ribbon, which recently won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival. Oh, and it's in black and white. So. Popcorn flick! [Variety]

Shantel VanSanten, yes the Shantel VanSanten, has joined the cast of the CW's bizarrely successful workhorse series One Tree Hill. She'll play the sister to some other character and I'm sure there will be romantic polyhedrons and everyone who's watching at home will just wheeze and fart and take another hit of Munchos. [THR]

Oh good. The Travel Channel has picked up a reality series called The Streets of America: The Search for America's Worst Driver. It will pit a bunch of terrible drivers in a battle royale in the streets of Los Angeles. Winner kills all. It will be the highest employer on television of women and Asian people. DRIVING JOKES! [Variety]

Perhaps sensing the acrid, cotton-candyish whiff of defeat in the air, fading megastar Tom Cruise has reteamed with Jackie Joyner Abrams to produce the next Mission Impossible flick. No, he's not yet signed on to star in the flick, which would be the fourth in the franchise, so that's still cast in some doubt. Abrams is also not onboard to direct, as his threequel was a box office disappointment. Which is a shame, because it was, in strict movie-makin' terms, the best of the series. Sure MI one was fun but Brian De Palma is also kind of a hack, and we all know that John Woo's ludicrous MI 2 was an execrable failure, so really, MI 3 was the best. Hands down. You just can't beat that opening scene with Phil Hoffman (we're best friends). Anyway, the two might reboot the whole thing and do an ensemble approach, which they tried with the first one (Kristin Scott Thomas! Emilio Estevez!) until Tom Cruise got greedy and hired Jon Voight to kill everyone. [THR]

Aw, old ladies are funny. Sigourney Weaver (did you know that when she and Meryl Streep were at Yale together, Sigourney was the perpetual underdog, always overshadowed by the genius acting machine that is Meryl? It's true! And, sadly, it still sort of is) and Blythe Danner have been cast in the new Simon Pegg/Nick Frost commedia dell'arte, Paul. Flick is about two science fiction dorks who travel to Area 51 and discover a real alien. Then Sigourney busts out and screams "Get away from them, you bitch!" and kills Paul with her Exosquad suit while Blythe stands in the corner nervously reciting lines from Suddenly Last Summer. Oh, Greg Mottola is directing it, so there will probably be dick jokes as well. We're excited. No, really. We are. [Variety]

Image of Tom Cruise pretending to like basketball via Getty

She asked aloud “whether there’s unchartered territory for a creature who’s become somewhat debased by this computer generated thing. I haven’t seen ["Alien Vs. Predator"] but I just think if you overexpose the creature, that’s a mistake.”

Weaver confirmed that she and Scott have discussed re-teaming for a fifth film, “Both of us feel a kind of commitment to that woman. He’s as much responsible for who she is as I am.” Then as she opined on the way the alien creature had been ruined in the recent films, Weaver’s comments got especially interesting.

“We’d have to go back to the drawing board on [the alien],” she said. “Ridley said that right away when we first talked about [a fifth film].”

And finally, the quote that’s gotten me mighty curious, “What we’re interested in is taking the character of Ripley and seeing what other science fiction story we can tell about someone who has lived several lives.”

Though purists may blanch at the idea of an alien-less Alien sequel, we agree that there are plenty of stories left for Weaver's indomitable central character. In particular, we're looking forward to RIPL-e, in which Ellen Ripley, tasked with garbage management on a far-off planet, must overcome her longtime distrust of androids when she falls in love with an adorable (and tasty!) iPod.

• Will Signourney Weaver Appear In The ‘Ghostbusters’ Sequel? She’s Got Ideas [MTV]

• Sigourney Weaver And Ridley Scott To Team Up For Alien-Less ‘Alien’ Sequel? [MTV]

· Iron Man swoops around overseas for his last few glory laps before Indiana arrives on Shia's hog to dominate this weekend's box office. [Variety]
· Gersh TV lit department head gary Loder has left the agency with his client list tucked under his arm. Jack Dytman and Rob Golenberg will take his place. [THR]
· My Name is Earl EP Bobby Bowman signed a seven-figure deal with 20th Century Fox TV, requiring him to stay on as Earl's showrunner and develop new shows for the network. Yes, seven figures is pretty nice—but wake Seth MacFarlane up when you crack eight. [THR]