Gossip Girl

XOXO, "Gossip Girl. " The CW's eye-candy drama about the insanely overdressed offspring of the rich and infamous will end its sixth season run this fall, but worry not, fashion fans: "The Carrie Diaries" is ready to take its place at 9 p.m. Mondays, beginning in January. AnnaSophia Robb ("Race to Witch Mountain") will play "Sex and the City's" Carrie Bradshaw way back in the '80s, before she could afford a closet full of Manolos (and also before she grew up to look more like "Square Pegs" veteran Sarah Jessica Parker than just another CW-perfect teen)

UPDATE, 4 p.m. Monday, May 14, 2012: On Monday, NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt announced that next season would, after all, be the last for "30 Rock," apparently contradicting what he'd told reporters only the day before.   SO MAYBE NEXT season won't be the last for NBC's "30 Rock," after all? Following days of online reports that the network had given the sitcom created by and starring Upper Darby's Tina Fey 13 episodes to wrap things up, NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt said Sunday that "we haven't definitively said that" to the people at "30 Rock" or to those at "The Office" or "Community," both of which will also return.

The Philadelphia Story portrayed the city's suburbs as a grand landscape of mansions and manicured lawns where the rich and idle flirt over cocktails. In thirtysomething it was the background for a group of painfully earnest baby boomers who shared existential crises over wine coolers. And Pretty Little Liars, the best-selling book series and TV show from Downingtown novelist Sara Shepard? Try four teenage girls embroiled in murder, blackmail, cyberbullying and arson.

What's good out there? What have you read, heard or seen in the last month that really moved or informed you? Books, stories, movies, articles, TV, music? Send us your suggestions! (See "To Reach Currents," C3. If e-mailing, put "Things We Like" in the subject field.) Article/essay/speech: "The Most Mysterious Right," by Cass R. Sunstein, in the Nov. 12 New Republic (http: //go.philly.com/sunstein). How the Second Amendment got this way. Short story: "Still-Life," by Dom DeLillo, in the April 9 New Yorker (http://go.

Sitting below the title, Rebecca Hall and Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner look toward Ben Affleck, the multi-hyphenate who co-wrote and directed "The Town. " Maybe they want to know why their headshots are so small. But Affleck, his square jaw set like concrete, looks upward. He's confused, just like anyone else who's seen this annoying image of machine gun-toting nuns in wrinkled, old-man latex. (The Six Flags Guy called; he wants his face back.) The action makes no sense, either, because the nuns are running AWAY from the bags of money visible in the back of the armored car. Are we supposed to think the "bank robbery capital of America" is now protected by God?

WITH JUST TWO new shows for the fall, the CW yesterday unveiled a schedule for advertisers in New York that managed to shake up all five nights it programs. "Melrose Place" is buried - again ? but the undead will continue to survive on the CW, thanks to "Vampire Diaries," the network's strongest new show, which gets a new Thursday night partner in "Nikita," a remake of, yes, "La Femme Nikita" that stars Maggie Q as a troubled teen taken off death row by federal agents who want to train her to kill people for their very secret agency.

At this very moment, hundreds of Penn students are hunched over their computers, furiously composing pithy bits of prose that they hope to get published in the Shoutouts section of 34th Street, the Daily Pennsylvanian student newspaper's weekly magazine. Today at noon is the deadline for the much-anticipated, once-a-semester feature. The Ivy League's finest literary work it's not. In the request for the fall's submissions on the magazine's blog, the editors described shoutouts as "reader-submitted expressions of love/vitriol/both . . . and the meaner, the better.

CONAN O'BRIEN took the stage at the Tower Theater last night in a Flyers jersey and later was joined by a surprise musical guest - Phish front man Trey Anastasio , also decked out in Flyers garb. And Upper Darby native Tina Fey joined Conan on stage for a bit, too. Earlier in the day, Conan and wife, Liza , lunched outside at Panini's Trattoria (317 Market). O'Brien went for fettuccine with shrimp, tomatoes and arugula while his wife had the restaurant's Michelangelo sandwich with prosciutto, provolone and roasted peppers.

Second time around, the magic jeans are an even better fit. But don't think that The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, sequel to the 2005 film based on the young-adult novels by Ann Brashares, is about fashionistas looking for love and marriage, like virtually every movie targeting females. Sisterhood 2 tracks the lonely summer after freshman year, that challenging season when you no longer fit in your parents' home. When you struggle to find your place without the friends who sustained you through high school.

A pair of movies that deal with parenting in very different ways top this week's new releases on DVD. City Island - Grade B+: Prison guard Vince (Andy Garcia) is keeping a secret from his family. Director/writer Raymond De Felitta starts the movie on a screaming high note, but he slowly turns down the volume until his characters resonate with a deep and pure honesty. The guard's children have secrets. His college student daughter (Dominik Garcia-Lorido) has lost her scholarship and turned to stripping to make money.

XOXO, "Gossip Girl. " The CW's eye-candy drama about the insanely overdressed offspring of the rich and infamous will end its sixth season run this fall, but worry not, fashion fans: "The Carrie Diaries" is ready to take its place at 9 p.m. Mondays, beginning in January. AnnaSophia Robb ("Race to Witch Mountain") will play "Sex and the City's" Carrie Bradshaw way back in the '80s, before she could afford a closet full of Manolos (and also before she grew up to look more like "Square Pegs" veteran Sarah Jessica Parker than just another CW-perfect teen)

The Philadelphia Story portrayed the city's suburbs as a grand landscape of mansions and manicured lawns where the rich and idle flirt over cocktails. In thirtysomething it was the background for a group of painfully earnest baby boomers who shared existential crises over wine coolers. And Pretty Little Liars, the best-selling book series and TV show from Downingtown novelist Sara Shepard? Try four teenage girls embroiled in murder, blackmail, cyberbullying and arson.

Lindsay Lohan 's estranged father, Michael , hasn't exactly been a beacon of support when it comes to his daughter's life. He has repeatedly called her decisions into question and has appealed for her to enter rehab. So we're a bit surprised that MiLo has suddenly come out as a champion of his lil' girl - for taking her clothes off in Playboy. It was a "good move" for her career, MiLo tells Dr. Drew Pinsky on the CW gabshow Dr. Drew's Lifechangers . What career direction is that?

Sitting below the title, Rebecca Hall and Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner look toward Ben Affleck, the multi-hyphenate who co-wrote and directed "The Town. " Maybe they want to know why their headshots are so small. But Affleck, his square jaw set like concrete, looks upward. He's confused, just like anyone else who's seen this annoying image of machine gun-toting nuns in wrinkled, old-man latex. (The Six Flags Guy called; he wants his face back.) The action makes no sense, either, because the nuns are running AWAY from the bags of money visible in the back of the armored car. Are we supposed to think the "bank robbery capital of America" is now protected by God?

NIKITA. 9 tonight, Channel 57. HERE'S AN idea for carving a chunk out of the federal deficit: Stop funding agencies that take extremely attractive young people off Death Row to train them as assassins. Because that kind of thing has to be hugely expensive. And that's even before the draftees escape and go all "Dollhouse" on their handlers, using their training against the very people who made them such superb killers in the first place. That's where we find the title character of the CW's "Nikita" tonight in the latest incarnation of the heroine of the 20-year-old French film - yes, all the bad government spending ideas really do start in France - that people in the CW's target audience may or may not remember as "La Femme Nikita.

A pair of movies that deal with parenting in very different ways top this week's new releases on DVD. City Island - Grade B+: Prison guard Vince (Andy Garcia) is keeping a secret from his family. Director/writer Raymond De Felitta starts the movie on a screaming high note, but he slowly turns down the volume until his characters resonate with a deep and pure honesty. The guard's children have secrets. His college student daughter (Dominik Garcia-Lorido) has lost her scholarship and turned to stripping to make money.

CONAN O'BRIEN took the stage at the Tower Theater last night in a Flyers jersey and later was joined by a surprise musical guest - Phish front man Trey Anastasio , also decked out in Flyers garb. And Upper Darby native Tina Fey joined Conan on stage for a bit, too. Earlier in the day, Conan and wife, Liza , lunched outside at Panini's Trattoria (317 Market). O'Brien went for fettuccine with shrimp, tomatoes and arugula while his wife had the restaurant's Michelangelo sandwich with prosciutto, provolone and roasted peppers.

J IMMY BUFFETT - whose tunes are as much a part of life in Pensacola as fried grouper, Land Shark beer, the Navy's Blue Angels and dead, oil-covered pelicans - is planning to open the $50 million, 162-room Margaritaville Hotel in a week. As tar balls came ashore Saturday from BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Buffett said he had no plans to delay the opening. "This will pass," he said as walked along the city's beachfront and fishing pier with Florida Gov. Charlie Crist . The Margaritaville Hotel sits on land where Hurricane Ivan destroyed a previous hotel in 2004, near the main section of Pensacola Beach.

WITH JUST TWO new shows for the fall, the CW yesterday unveiled a schedule for advertisers in New York that managed to shake up all five nights it programs. "Melrose Place" is buried - again ? but the undead will continue to survive on the CW, thanks to "Vampire Diaries," the network's strongest new show, which gets a new Thursday night partner in "Nikita," a remake of, yes, "La Femme Nikita" that stars Maggie Q as a troubled teen taken off death row by federal agents who want to train her to kill people for their very secret agency.

At this very moment, hundreds of Penn students are hunched over their computers, furiously composing pithy bits of prose that they hope to get published in the Shoutouts section of 34th Street, the Daily Pennsylvanian student newspaper's weekly magazine. Today at noon is the deadline for the much-anticipated, once-a-semester feature. The Ivy League's finest literary work it's not. In the request for the fall's submissions on the magazine's blog, the editors described shoutouts as "reader-submitted expressions of love/vitriol/both . . . and the meaner, the better.