Rosie O’Donnell (The Rosie O’Donnell Show) will be returning to FX’s Nip/Tuck in season five (which starts October 30th). Her character, Dawn Budge, will have a run-in with a yet-to-be-cast middle-age lesbian at a gay pride parade.
TV Guide has reported that Invasion’s Kari Matchett is joining the cast of NBC’s ER on November 1st (episode six). She’ll be playing a tough attending physician who is moonlighting at County General to finance her world travels.
Steve Schirripa (best known as The Soprano’s Bobby Baccalieri) has signed to host his own cooking show on Rainbow Media’s free on-demand network, Lifeskool. The network has reportedly ordered nine episodes of Steve Schirripa’s Hungry which will air in late 2007. Schirripa will give tours of his favorite restaurants as well as prepare meals on-camera. The actor authored last year’s The Goomba Diet: Living Large and Lovin’ It cookbook. Schirripa also appears on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno as a correspondent, hosts Spike TV’s Casino Cinema, and is working on the ABC holiday special, Elmo’s Christmas Countdown.
And speaking of The Sopranos, James Gandolfini has reportedly signed to star in an HBO mini-series as charismatic cult leader Jim Jones. As the head of the Peoples Temple in Jonestown, the drug-addicted Jones led a mass suicide in 1978.
Mary-Kate Olsen‘s return to television is scheduled to begin airing next Monday, September 17, 2007 on Showtime’s Weeds. The former Full House actress will play “good Christian girl” Tara and will appear in 10 episodes of Weeds. After that, you’ll be able to see her in next year’s indie movie The Wackness opposite Ben Kingsley.
It looks like Sheriff Don Lamb is staying in the legal business. Michael Muhney, the actor who played the Veronica Mars lawman, has joined the cast of Lifetime’s Family Practice as one of Beau Bridges’ lawyer sons in a prestigious Chicago law firm.
TV Guide is reporting that Charisma Carpenter (Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer) will be among the contestants on the upcoming celebrity edition of NBC’s The Apprentice. She’s taken on vampires and demons so I’m sure Donald Trump won’t be a problem. The network nor Trump’s camp have yet to officially confirm any participants for the show. Stay tuned! 
