When Olympian gold medalist Michael Phelps was announced as the host of Saturday Night Live's 33rd season premiere, we had a couple concerns about his acting ability — worries that, frankly, weren't alleviated by his monotone presenting at last night's VMAs. Fortunately, SNL all-star Kristen Wiig has the right idea about how best to utilise Phelps — and it's by putting focus on his most unassailable trait, his body:

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Live From Beijing: Two weeks ago, when soliciting your help in casting Olympian Michael Phelps (thereby sparing him a terrible Hollywood future), we predicted of the athlete, "There's bound to be an awkward SNL-hosting stint yet to come." Today, TV Guide announced, "The Summer Olympics' outstandingly golden boy, swimmer Michael Phelps, will dive into not-ready-for-primetime television as the guest host of Saturday Night Live's 33rd season premiere." Were we simply prescient, or is Lorne Michaels now culling ideas from the digital pages of Defamer? If Phelps appears in a Saved By The Bell skit, perhaps we'll have our answer. [TV Guide]

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Going for the Bronze: Though NBC's Olympic coverage provided the network with television's most watched event anywhere, ever, in the history of the universe, that massive audience hasn't translated into major spikes of interest for NBC's fall shows like Kath & Kim and My Own Worst Enemy. The network spent 65% of its promo time on returning shows (like Lipstick Jungle Lipstick Jungle Lipstick Jungle) but failed to perk awareness for anything but the 80's retread Knight Rider. Still, before NBC shoehorns Michael Phelps into Selma Blair's thong, they've got this bit of recent history to add perspective: the Athens Olympics were used to tout quickly flushed shows like Joey and LAX. Perhaps Kath & Kim will stand on its own merits — that is, as long as they didn't advertise it during the rebellion-inducing beach volleyball marathon. [Variety]

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· The Humanitas Prize has announced its short list: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, Juno, and Lars and the Real Girl have all been singled out for having explored "the human condition in a way which affirms the dignity of the human person and reveals common humanity." We love those three movies so much, we wish we could just smush them together into one movie: The Diving Lars and the Junofly, a tender story about an alienated youth with "locked-in" syndrome who accidentally impregnates his teenage physical therapist, who's actually a Resusci Annie doll. OK, we'll stop now. [Variety]
· ABC has gone on a pickup feeding frenzy. Ordered to series: Castle, about a horror novelist who solves crimes, The Unusuals, an NYPD cop dramedy starring Amber Tamblyn, Cupid, and—we're sorry, did we just say "an NYPD cop dramedy starring Amber Tamblyn?" We believe we did! And we're damned if we know how we're supposed to feel about that. Oh, what the hell. We're jazzed! [THR]

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· Fox will stream the premieres of Fringe and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles on their website while the shows air on TV, but they'll only be accessible from college dorms. As an additional feature of their on-campus marketing efforts, if there's a Fox-branded sock on the doorknob, that means your roommate is getting busy with his girlfriend during an episode of House. [Variety]
· All 1.3 billion in China tuned in to the Olympics closing ceremony, and are now intimately familiar with E! pre-show host Ryan Seacrest, who they refer to as 树猴, or "the kind-eyed Golden Tree Monkey." [THR]
· Barack Obama continues to be underrepresented in the guy-with-a-talk-show sector, as the Committee for Late Night Monologue Political Parity released preliminary findings putting the Democratic nominee at 169 punchlines versus McCain's 322. [Variety]
· Paul McCartney has announced he'd play Tel Aviv on September 25. The performance comes 40 years after The Beatles were banned from Israel "over concerns the group's lyrics could corrupt Israeli youth." Translation: "What—you couldn't have said you were bigger than Moses? Get lost for 40 years, we'll be in touch." [Variety]
· Let's play One of These Things Just Doesn't Belong: Demoted Casting Edition! [THR]

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What happens when you take World's Fastest Man Usain Bolt, a selection of beloved movies that involve running or chasing, and modern imaging software? You get EW.com's 12 Movies Made Better by World's Fastest Man. While it's easy to fantasize about what the chest-thumping Puma-endorser would do for Chariots of Fire and Apocalypto, it's Run, Usain, Run—in which the super-athlete runs around the streets of Berlin to techno music in a red fright wig—that would really capitalise on his talents, making for another promising addition to our Gallery of Failed Olympian Crossovers. [EW]

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Having taken our stern but loving admonitions against grabbing the first Hollywood opportunity that comes slithering his way, gilled Olympian phenom Michael Phelps appears to be enjoying the scenic route out of Beijing and into the bachelor lifestyle to which his 14 total gold medals entitle him. His ladyfriend roundelay reportedly peaked earlier this week with 20-year-old Australian swimmer and make-out enthusiast Stephanie Rice — herself one of her country's most celebrated young athletes and naughty Facebook page proprietors:

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It was bound to happen: tired of pumping out ads with a not-so-subtle "just wait until after the Olympics because we're not going to waste our A game while you're watching the Greco-Roman Wrestling heats" subtext, Channel Seven's rivals (which for the most part means Channel Nine, as ABC are too busy being seriose cats and Channel Ten are off packing bowls and hanging ten, or something equally hip and youthful) have started coughing up the mad bucks to get gold medalists on their shows - and, naturally, Seven is pissed.

"This is unprecedented, the level of desperation, the underhandedness and ugliness that went on," a source said.

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As we take stock of the winding-down Summer Olympics, not every story emerging from Beijing can deal with an upbeat panoply of would-be stars and swimmer abs. There's plenty to improve on for 2012, starting with women's beach volleyball — an athletic travesty so grave that readers of one TV blog have mounted sort of an accidental revolt against its continuation four years from now in London:

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· NBC commanded an appropriately world-record-breaking ratings win over the other four networks thanks to Michael Phelps and the rest of their Olympics coverage; but CBS's Big Brother managed to hold its own, due in no small part to a competitively themed Drown the Old Guy in Slop episode that tested the outer limits of senior contestant Jerry's will to live. [Variety]
· She lost the weight, she's feeling great, and now she's ready to work: Valerie Bertinelli will return to her sitcom roots with a half-four TBS comedy about a single mum "who struggles to care for two kids and a lumber business." Even more exciting? Bonnie Franklin is in talks to play a stack of two-by-fours! [Variety]
· Fox News Channel is sprucing up its Facebook page with a video clip library, enhanced feedback applications, and anchor status updates alerting you that "Bill O'Reilly is...totally nuts for WALL-E even though he knows he shouldn't be :P!!!" [Variety]
·James McAvoy and Emily Blunt will voice the title gnomes is Gnomio and Juliet, playing starcrossed Travelocity pitchmen from "rival gardens" in a computer-animated Miramax feature. [THR]
·ABC is going forward with Supermanny, a male version of Supernanny, in which bratty problem-children will be dazzled into submission by their new hunky caregiver's rippling abs and dreamy smile. [THR]

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