• Lindsay Lohan is in Morocco for the opening of some resort and was spotted kissing Gerard Butler at the launch party. She allegedly said:

"He's hot, he's mine! I've got no ring on my finger so I'm going to have lots of fun. This is the most romantic place in the world." Of course, since Gerard was linked to Jen A, this piece begins: "It seems there is yet more heartbreak in store for unlucky-in-love Jennifer Aniston." [Daily Mail]

• Lindsay Lohan Tweeted from Morocco: "some guy was following me, then pulled up in his car&pointed a GUN at me! The guy started laughing&pushed the trigger&it was a fake gun..I was crying..he scared me." [Gatecrasher]
• Lindsay's dad Michael Lohan — who's been talking about kidnapping his daughter and doing some kind of intervention, has been threatened with imprisonment by Dina Lohan, who says: "He is hurting Lindsay. It breaks my heart. She says, 'Mommy, when is he ever going to stop?' He is also six months behind in his child support. On Monday we will file a violation order and if he doesn't pay he'll go to jail." Oh, and you know those voicemail messages Michael was going to play on TV? Dina fumes: "He's getting a cease-and-desist letter so that's not going to happen. If it's something personal about your child, you don't go public with it." Dina also says: "He is desperate and spiraling out of control." [Daily Express]
• "My father is a lunatic & doesn't even deserve such a title since he's never been around in my life other than when he'd threaten me & my family. He should be where he has always put himself after verbally abusing and physically abusing people all my life-behind bars. It's so sad to get a phone call from my baby sister just now asking, 'why is daddy doing this?' Through tears. He's crossed the lines & hurt me & my family 4 the last time." — Lindsay Lohan. [People via Lindsay's Twitter]
• Michael Lohan says he'll stop talking if Lindsay goes to rehab. "But if the lies continue and the prescription drug use doesn't stop, neither will I." He also says: "I wasn't going to let people hear Dina's drunken rants about Lindsay, and I certainly wasn't going to let people hear anything about Lindsay, but now that Dina and Lindsay continue to lie and deny their problems, and even make up stories about me, NOW you will see and hear Lindsay's calls and texts. I am NOT the liar, they are. Hopefully then, they will realize how deceptive and in denial they are and finally realize that lying and denial are part of their addictions. I am sorry I had to take this route, but I have tried and tried to help Linds and I have been lied about long enough." [Radar Online]
• Kelly Bensimon was spotted being civil at her Halloween party! "She was dancing and saying hi to everyone," a partygoer says. "A lot of people were kind of shocked at how nice she was being." Kelly was also totally buddy-buddy with former frenemy Jill Zarin, who came dressed as Poison Ivy. [Gatecrasher]
• Tonight TLC will air Kate: Her Story, in which NBC's Natalie Morales sits down with Kate Gosselin for "her most intimate interview to date." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Precious is getting Oscar buzz, but the cast and crew are being cautious. "I know nothing about that," Mariah Carey said when asked about the Academy Awards. Director Lee Daniels said: "I'm in my bubble. The minute I embrace that concept of Oscar buzz then I'm in the fetal position with the covers over my head, chain smoking with a bottle of tequila, sitting next to the phone waiting for my agent to call me. I can't go there, I don't even embrace it." [Mirror]
• "As far as the Oscar, this being my first film, I'm having the best ride of my life. I don't know what makes an Oscar-winning actress. I don't feel like Halle Berry or Meryl Streep. I just feel like Gabby." — Gabourey Sidibe. [NY Post]
• Katie Holmes has replaced Liv Tyler in an indie comedy called The Romantics and will also serve as executive producer on the flick. The plot: eight friends from college reunite for a wedding. The cast includes Anna Paquin, Josh Duhamel, Malin Akerman, Elijah Wood, Adam Brody and Jeremy Strong. [Variety]
• Even though some of her items were recently returned to her, Paris Hilton feels "very, very violated" by being burglarized by the Teen Thieves. I could write that I feel very very violated after seeing her topless sex tape pix all over the Internet but whatever. [The Sun]
• One of Lady Gaga's earliest memories is watching her mother going through her fashionable closet: "She always looked so much more pristine than all the other mothers. I have a lot of her in me." At the link, see Gaga in a pink wig and studded mask. [ONTD via Flare Magazine]
• Ewan McGregor and George Clooney are both in Men Who Stare At Goats, but it's not the first they've worked together: In 1997, Ewan guest-starred on ER as a robber who gets shot; Clooney was the surgeon who tries to save him. "I was literally unconscious," Ewan says. "He was just doing all the dialogue over my undressed body." [USA Today]
• Your moment of Zen: Click to see Jon Stewart, his wife and kids dressed up for Halloween! [Celebrity Baby Scoop]
• Blake Lively was a brunette flight attendant for Halloween; Penn Badgley was a 1970s basketball player. Michael Kors was a hippie. [Gatecrasher]
• Coco and Rihanna celebrated Halloween with an interesting skin-to-costume ratio. [The Life Files]
• The guy who was arrested for attacking Ryan Seacrest's security guard was training to be an actor and TMZ has video of one of his scenes. [TMZ]
• On December 7, Carrie Underwood's two-hour Fox variety show, Carrie Underwood: An All-Star Holiday Special will air, featuring a duet with Dolly Parton and a trio with Christina Applegate and fellow Oklahoman Kristin Chenoweth. She'll also sing with American Idol alum David Cook: "We sound really good together, point blank… Out of all the people that have been on Idol, he's my best friend." [USA Today]
• In The Last Station, Helen Mirren plays Sofya, Tolstoy's wife of 48 years and the mother of his 13 children. Mirren, whose real name is lynea Mironov, felt a connection with her character: "My great great grandmother was a Russian countess and one side of my family was Russian aristocracy; the other was English working-class, so I'm a good contradiction." And: "This is one of the great women's roles in film. Sofya is a wonderfully tempestuous and passionate person." [Telegraph]
• Mark your calendars: January Jones, aka Mad Men's Betty Draper, will host Saturday Night Live on November 14 — with the Black Eyed Peas as musical guests. November 21, it'll be Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the Dave Matthews Band. [EW]
• Despite all the scandal, The Late Show With David Letterman hasn't shown lower ratings. It's down 8% in its coveted 18-49 demo but up 13% total viewers… Compare that to The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien, which is down 15% in the demo and down 47% in viewers. [Reuters]
• Cute pic of Sam Ronson on the back of Mark Ronson's scooter. [Daily Mail]
• Edward Norton ran the New York Marathon with an unofficial time of 3:48:01. He and 3 Masai warriors — and others, including Alanis Morrisette and David Blaine — ran to raise money for the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust. [ONTD]
• Ryan Reynolds ran the New York marathon as well; pic at the link. [Gatecrasher]
• Model Veronica Webb also ran the marathon. [Page Six]
• The cast of Glee will be presented with a Hollywood Diversity Award later this month. [Reuters]
• A waiter at high-end restaurant Clarke Cooke House in Newport, Rhode Island asked Kevin Spacey not to smoke in the establishment. Spacey called the guy an "aggressive prick" and the guy got fired. [Radar Online]
• At the link, Sparkle Vamp Robert Pattinson does his best James Dean for Vanity Fair. [ONTD]
• Speaking of the Sparkle Vamp: Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart will allegedly be on the December cover of Harper's Bazaar. [WWD]
• Mel Gibson is a father for the eighth time: His girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva had a baby girl on Friday. By the by, Oksana is 39; Mel's eldest daughter Hannah is 28. [Daily Mail]
• Kelly Rowland plays a happy housewife and mom of triplets in the new 50 Cent video, although there's a twist at the end. [The Life Files]
• Clive Owen's costars can't stop gushing about how awesome he is. [The Star]
• Tila Tequila is auctioning off a plaster cast of her boobs to help raise money for breast cancer awareness. [Page Six]
• "British film icon Sir Michael Caine has abandoned his support of the Labour party and announced he will vote Conservative at the next general election." [Telegraph]
• RIP August Coppola, Nicoalas Cage's dad and Francis Ford Coppola's brother. [Page Six]
• Q: Did you ever think that the dancing baby was ridiculous?
  A: "No, honestly, I was quite intrigued by it. I thought it was smart! Obviously, it was symbolic of Ally's biological clock ticking away, and I thought, what a great way to do that. I loved the fantasy sequences; I loved that we got to see her imagination come to life." — Calista Flockhart on Ally McBeal. [Newsweek]
• "Would you take a photo with me? I love Asians!" — Anthony Anderson. [Page Six]
• "What do you mean, you don't know who I am? I'm on Bravo." — Chad from Million Dollar Listing. [Page Six]
• "In the area of our veterans coming home with traumas or PTSD or whatever, it's one of those issues that isn't pretty to look at. We ask these people to fight for us and risk their lives, and certainly potentially alter their outlook of the world or how they react to things. I think it would be nice for us as a society to have some more awareness of what they go through, and to take on some more responsibility for the results of our asking them to go over there." — Tobey Maquire, who plays a Marine captain who survives captivity in Afghanistan only to find his relationship back home with his family — and his self-image — changed, in the family drama Brothers. [LA Times]
• "[The movie] is definitely not a history lesson. It's very relatable. She doesn't get on with her mother. She's in love for the first time. She's a teenager. And she's in a job where she's in way over her head." — Emily Blunt on the teenage Queen in Young Victoria. [LA Times]
• "I think parents need to take a lot more responsibility than they do about whether it's OK for their children to go to Resident Evil or any other movie with violence or sex or whatever. It's really easy to blame Hollywood for violence having an effect on kids, but movies would have no power if parents would just set their own standards. And it's the same with video games." And: "I did this movie .45 that kind of never saw the light of day, it went straight to DVD. I really connected with this character who was a victim of domestic violence but ends up taking control. I think a lot more women today are taking control as opposed to being the kind of stereotypical female who's weepy and gets abused by men. Women are more educated now about abuse. It's not like it was in the '80s. I think they're much more in control of all aspects of their lives. I think Japanese girls are fascinated with strong women. Their culture really puts such a focus on being subservient. Like, you go to Tokyo and they bow and they want to make sure everything's good. That's like a cultural phenomenon. So I think to see a woman kicking butt and using weapons makes them feel a little empowered. So there's a huge fan base for the Resident Evil movies over there." — Milla Jovovich. [ONTD via Parade]
• "I don't want to be a movie star like Angelina Jolie. Nothing about being a celebrity is desirable. I'm an actor. It's bizarre to me that everybody's so obsessive." — Kristen Stewart. [Showbiz Spy]
• "I like to iron. Ironing is comfort. It's control. I'm a nutty person who likes to make sure everything is in its place." — Sandra Bullock. [The Life Files via Parade]
• "I think I'm just misunderstood. I'm not a fame seeker. Everyday I look in the mirror and I wonder [why I'm famous]. I don't sing. I don't dance. I'm not a Nobel Peace Prizewinner. I just had eight kids and I had a show on TLC… Half the stuff I've done, if I look at my moral compass, I shouldn't have done. I know that but I did it anyway. It's like fame canceled out conviction. I want to apologize to Kate in private… I'll apologize to her for openly having relationships in the public eye. That was a huge mistake, because if she would've done that to me, I would have been extremely pissed off. Not because our relationship is over, it's almost like a stab in the back. And now that I think about it, it was a very wrong thing to do. I definitely regret it." — Jon Gosselin. [People]

There is really no good reason for "Eli Stone" to be quite as much fun as it is, given that the premise seems spraywashed with earnestness and spun to alienate the atheistic and the greedy....The anti-John Edwards, Eli has contentedly sequestered himself in one of the two Americas — specifically, a vast, honey-colored apartment in downturn-resistant San Francisco — until the Armani suits start to feel itchy....As it turns out Eli has an aneurysm and who knows how long to live. So with his remaining time he decides to switch sides in the class war and represent the squashed and powerless against the avaricious interests of Big Pharma and Bad Agribusiness....This suggested that the series had causes to retail, but it hasn't felt like television agitprop so far. "Eli Stone" is committed to a quaint, flimsy populism and a kind of 12-step "God is where you find him" spirituality.

Today's theory: As a reaction to the runaway trend toward unscripted programming, and to distinguish their work from all those so-called reality shows, more and more Hollywood writers (when they aren't on strike) have been coming up with surreality shows. These series are fictions that have some kind of supernatural or spiritual element, or are just preposterous, fantastic hooey, as far from reality as possible. Tonight's example: "Eli Stone," a drama about a lawyer who sees odd things and hears funny music and imagines singer George Michael dancing around on his coffee table. [The show is] fetched far and already limping if not quite lame... Stone's freakouts are quite generously tolerated by his boss, Jordan Wethersby (the ineffably reliable Victor Garber...Garber is responsible for whatever gravitas the show manages; indeed, he appears to be taking it more seriously than anyone else in the cast, including [lead actor Jonny Lee] Miller.

Eli finds his way to Dr. Chen (James Saito), an acupuncturist who puts on a fake Chinese accent for effect and believes that Eli might be a "prophet." There are two explanations for everything, Chen tells Eli, "the scientific and the divine." But as is usual in our sentimental world, the divine is given the edge here. Chen's pidgin injunction to "Make peace George Michael," for instance, later turns up in a wall of alphabet blocks that a client's autistic son is building. And the client, who has convinced Eli to take her case — a lawsuit against a vaccine manufacturer represented by his own company — also happens to be the woman to whom he lost his virginity, while a George Michael tape played in the background. Everything is connected. (The episode has drawn protest from the American Academy of Pediatrics over the vaccine-autism link.)

The first few episodes of Eli Stone focus on hot-button issues like the possible dangers of vaccination and illegal immigration. Of course, the show tackles these topics with the same drippy bathos Brothers & Sisters uses to digest the war in Iraq. Since Stone is technically a legal drama, there is a winner in every case, but the show is careful not to come down too hard on either side — something that keeps it from being as relevant as it would like. In fact, the show is at its best when it's the furthest removed from reality. Eli's hallucinations are deliciously campy... What also helps Eli Stone transcend some of its schlockier moments is its wonderful cast. Miller's angular face is the perfect canvas to portray the myriad emotional states of his character — from high-strung lawyer-type to sympathetic soul to fragile man-child on the verge of a breakdown. The show doesn't have nearly as much heart as it's aiming for, but what it's got comes from Miller.

The show, created by Marc Guggenheim and Greg Berlanti ("Dirty Sexy Money") ultimately feels so unoriginal. Despite a good cast led by Jonny Lee Miller as Eli, and despite the happy San Francisco setting, "Eli Stone" is a bag of too-familiar tricks. All the hallucinogenic quirkiness - flashes of dancing lawyers and low-flying prop planes - is tired and tiring... And "Eli Stone" is also burdened with an air of the formulaic sanctimony that has doomed Holly Hunter's "Saving Grace" to triteness, as our morally lost hero is shown the road to goodness like the folks on "Highway to Heaven." Sometimes, TV makes finding scruples seem as easy as listening to your GPS.

Eli Stone is adorable. Now if it would just stop trying so hard to make us adore it. There are far worse flaws for a TV show to have than a propensity to overwork adorability. But this highly enjoyable mix of faith and fantasy will do better in the long run if it can learn to lay back a bit — like by resisting the urge to put its lead, the instantly likable Jonny Lee Miller, through ever-cuter contortions simply because he's able to carry them off.

Is Greg Berlanti the new David E. Kelley? Translation: Berlanti is the writer-executive producer who just put two very quirky series on ABC: "Dirty Sexy Money" and Thursday's newest entry, "Eli Stone." Both shows are odd in that same way that Kelley's "Boston Legal" and "Ally McBeal" (among many others) played with tone so fearlessly (or recklessly). And the set-in-San Francisco "Eli Stone" is bound to get pigeonholed as a kind of male version of "Ally McBeal" in that the show centers around an eccentric lawyer who blurts out bits of craziness and has more than a few moments of delusion. If Ally had her dancing baby, Eli has his George Michael... Miller is almost reason enough to watch. Like Calista Flockhart in "Ally McBeal," he's been tasked with playing a wide spectrum of emotions - cold, hard lawyer; funny, likable boyfriend; quick-witted man on the go; introspective son and brother; and, finally, a man gob-smacked by George Michael. That alone is worth an hour. He's the secret weapon on "Eli Stone."