Unless you're one of the seven people in this country currently employed full-time and therefore far away from a television set, you've probably been lounging around your apartment during the day, desultory and shiftless. Busying about in your housecoat with curlers in your hair, day-drinking lukewarm zinfandel, smoking clove cigarettes, and peripherally watching your stories, you've got the makings of a 21st century Edie Beale. You may even take a little time out to periodically prod the cat with a yard stick to get her to stop mewling. That is until yesterday. Yesterday presented a glimpse of Franco on General Hospital. That's when you busted out the catnip. So you could have a 60-minute slice of you-and-James Franco special alone time. Perhaps you even opted to heckle your TV when the camera panned away to the blonde. After a bombastic debut, the actor's reasoning for coming onto the soap suddenly seems unimportant. His arc on the soap means that you can stop feeling bad about being a shut-in and can stop seeking out more enriching pursuits. Sometimes, it's enriching enough to simply support the arts. Franco's first few moments on GH after the break.

For the last few years Katherine Heigl has been the TV star you go to if you’re looking for someone to say some wackadoo shit on the record: The first respectable movie she every appeared in? It was sexist. The TV show that got her the movie in the first place? Really badly written. That Emmy she won? Don’t you dare give her another one. That day she had to work? Way too long. But, in her defense, here’s one thing Heigl’s never done: tell a rape joke on national television. But that's exactly what Modern Family's Sofia Vergara did yesterday on The View. Move over Heigl, there’s a new loose-lipped loony in town, and she likes to say insane, self-defeating things even more than you do.

At Cambridge, he wasn’t as funny as John Cleese (born Cheese) or Graham Chapman, who were in the comedy footlights, and -- while deciding on a career as either a journalist or a chef -- he took up amateur drama. Since University, Sir Ian McKellen has become the consummate professional.

Once upon a time, well just months ago really, a small show premiered on Fox called Glee and it was just so darn promising. Fast forward about seven episodes and the once-promising musical dramedy has crumbled into a soppy morality play punctuated by embarrassing musical breaks (that you can fast forward through if you're the type who watches it online). Thankfully, there's Jane Lynch, who has been on every single television show, from Party of Five to Weeds, since time immemorial. Jane Lynch, who's really the only reason why any of us continue watching Glee. She's the only one on Glee who has yet to break into song, but as demonstrated on last night's chat with Conan O'Brien (and here, too!), she'd handle that with aplomb.

It’s finale week on Project Runway. I’ve watched all six seasons, and the theme that jumps out at me this year is copycatting. Logan copied Althea’s zipper collar. Althea copied Irina’s slouchy sweater sleeves. Irina copied some Coney Island artwork. (Carol Hannah hasn’t copied, but she just makes boring dress-dresses anyway.) I understand when you spend all day every day in the same room with people they’re going to rub off on you, but you have to do a little self-editing. If you repeat what the person next to you did last week, you have to expect to be called on it. Personally, I was rooting hard for Gordana. She may not have had that “wow” edge, but her clothes were all so beautifully constructed. She never sent anyone down the runway not looking their best. I thought her final piece looked like a Georgia O’Keeffe.

Music star Adam Lambert poses for the most recent cover of Out, along with four other personalities, as part of the Gay 100, the magazine’s annual celebration of icons, activists and mouthpieces. But Lambert’s inclusion has been marred by his record label and management, who, according to editor Aaron Hicklin, insisted that the American Idol runner-up not look “too gay.” Hicklin writes in an open letter to Lambert, “We’re curious whether you know that we made cover offers for you before American Idol was even halfway through its run. Apparently, Out was too gay, even for you. There was the issue of what it would do to your record sales, we were told. Imagine! A gay musician on the cover of a gay magazine. What might the parents think! It’s only because this cover is a group shot that includes a straight woman [Cyndi Lauper] that your team would allow you to be photographed at all.” It’s all eerily reminiscent of 1997, when Ellen DeGeneres came out on her eponymous sitcom.

So two genteel ladies had a sit-down. And everyone tuned in and then offered their own two shillings on the matter. The pair bantered about what it was like to be women in a man's world, coming thisclose to performing a spirited duet of "It's A Man's World". Mostly, as Sarah Palin's Going Rogue book tour stormed into Harpo Studios yesterday, we couldn't help but wonder what secrets Palin was hiding in that big hair of hers. Was she hiding a razor blade for self-defense, in case she found herself on the South Side? Did she have a secret blueprint on how to fix the economy -- the type she'd offer up to the country only if we offered her the Oval Office in exchange? Maybe Sarah Palin had insidery knowledge about what Levi's Johnston looks like behind that perilous fig leaf. In any case, one shameful, abhorrent truth was certain: That you couldn't help but feel for Palin. Whether she demystified the hot-messery of the 2008 Republican campaign or laid bare Palin family secrets. Her Oprah drop-by was a lot like one of Mo'Nique's monologues in Precious: That a-ha! moment when the crazy in her eye sparkles its brightest. A list of reasons why you probably admired the gay icon after the break.

Jeffrey Wells claims that there are two types of Edward Woodward fans: "the kind that automatically say "Equalizer!" when they hear his name and the kind that speak in respectful hushed tones of his performances in Breaker Morant (my personal favorite) and the original The Wicker Man.” Whether you’re a Luddite or a lofty, the sidelong point to be drawn from this ornery little dualism is that Edward Woodward did a bit of something for everybody. Unusually versatile, he succeeded as a stage actor, a pop crooner (12 albums) and character actor in films. And yes, he was also a classic TV mug who did a bang-up job with flinty types. He died today at 79. An embarrassment of riches after the jump.

Tonight on Gossip Girl, three turns out to be the loneliest number when the OM3 between Dan, Vanessa, and Lizzie McGuire turns out to be more complicated than their private parts originally expected. But let’s be honest -- we’ll go for the threesome, but we’re staying for the Gaga. On tonight’s episode, Leighton Meester’s Blair Waldorf continues in vain to impress her NYU classmates, this time by promising them a private Lady Gaga concert. The details of her guest appearance are cloudy at best: she wears a red gown with a 30-foot train. She performs her new single “Bad Romance.” She tells People, “It’s very performance art.”

Should you ever wonder, “is this person/place/thing cool?” here’s one way to find out: ask yourself, does CBS think this person/place/thing is cool? If the answer is yes, then you have your answer -- hells no! That person/place/thing is extremely uncool. For example, in the last year, the word douche has been said 76 times on CBS and its brethren networks. Twenty-six series have made use of the word, including The New Adventures of Old Christine, The Vampire Diaries, Law & Order: SVU, and Grey’s Anatomy. In other words, douche is now a word that can be used to make old people laugh. Not cool.