NBC Photo by Gene Trindl

Hide the hamsters...the Visitors are baaack!

Hoping to do for V what the Sci Fi Channel did for Battlestar Galactica, ABC has given the go-ahead on a reboot of the hit 1980s franchise about alien lizards from another planet who take over Earth.

Scott Peters, the brain behind The 4400, will write and executive produce the update with Warner Bros. TV, per Variety. Warners shepherded the 1983 NBC TV movie, its sequel and a standalone series that ran during the 1984-85 season.

The new version will completely revamp the original, including changing the allusions from the Holocaust to 9/11.

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Dana Edelson/NBC, Robert Voets/CBS

CSI was very, very bad for Grey's Anatomy. The presidential election was very, very good to Saturday Night Live—again.

In the first big Thursday night of the fall season, a premiering CSI (23 million viewers) killed a declining Grey's Anatomy (14.5 million).

On an otherwise so-so night for NBC, a half-hour SNL election special was the network's most watched show (10.6 million), even without Tina Fey or Sarah Palin, who may (or may not) show up on Saturday's late-night show. 

Other highlights from the night of premieres, per Nielsen Media Research stats:

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Monty Brinton/CBS

As if unwashed men and women subsisting on one meal a day—and sleeping inches away from other unwashed people whom they don't trust one bit—need to be reminded that they should think twice before getting too comfortable.

Fang may have redeemed itself last week with consecutive challenge wins, but all bets were off Thursday on Survivor: Gabon as both tribes were subjected to unexpected makeovers, resulting in a couple of new pecking orders and one unruly game of floating lacrosse.

Find out who scored, who sank and whether the latest twist made any difference when it came time for Tribal Council…

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Britney Spears is reminiscing about what life was like at the crossroads.

"I'm a smart person, what the hell was I thinking?" the comebacking pop star asks herself, probably rhetorically, in an upcoming MTV documentary addressing where she went wrong—and how she's getting herself back in the zone after coming thisclose to becoming a total lost cause.

Or worse, yesterday's news.

The appropriately, albeit tentatively, titled For the Record is slated to premiere Nov. 30 on MTV, two days before she turns 27 and releases her sixth studio album, Circus.

"So much has gone on over the last couple of years and there's a lot that people don't know about me that I want them to know," Spears said in a statement about the 90-minute special, which will feature the divorced mother of two answering what we'd like to believe will be tough questions about her recent past, as well as behind-the-scenes footage of her latest adventures recording, shooting her "Womanizer" video and making personal appearances.

"I wanted to make this film because I started to feel like I wasn't being seen in the light that I wanted to be seen in," she added. "This is an opportunity to set the record straight and talk about what I've been through and where I'm headed."

AP Photo/Chris Miller; Lisa O'Connor/ZUMAPress.com

So, what happens if Sarah Palin does Sarah Palin?

With the TV world waiting to see if the Alaskan governor pops up on tonight's Saturday Night Live special, one new study says that when Tina Fey does Palin, the Alaskan governor's favorability rating drops. 

The poll, conducted yesterday by a research company and a college-based public-opinion institute, asked 314 people how they felt about Palin after watching snippets of SNL sketches spoofing the consonant-dropping vice presidential hopeful.

The results?

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Dana Edelson/NBC

When it comes to Sarah Palin and Saturday Night Live, "Will she or won't she?" is a fair question. "When will she?" is a better one.

Following the lead of the V.P. wannabe herself, SNL puppetmaster Lorne Michaels and Weekend Update anchor/head writer Seth Meyers made the media rounds this week, playing up the possibility that the political cameo to end all political cameos may just come to fruition.

But maybe not just yet.

"Of those specific rumors, there's no truth," Meyers told Newsday of the wishful thinking-fueled reports that Palin will face off against her portrayer Tina Fey on either the Saturday night staple or one of its upcoming prime-time specials.

"We do have an open-door policy, but there's nothing specific yet, but our window of opportunity is before the election...Our doors are always open."

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Danny Moloshok/The CW

And now there are seven, bringing the collective weight of the remaining America's Next Top Model contestants down by at least 30 pounds.

Find out whose award-show faux-pas picture was not in Tyra Banks' hands at the end of tonight's episode…

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Anthony Jacobs/Getty Images

No Sarah Palin, no problem.

The John McCain-Barack Obama title card pulled in 63.2 million viewers last night, the biggest audience for a presidential debate since 1992, Nielsen Media Research said late today.

Like many sequels, the new show handily outgrossed the original. McCain-Obama II was watched by nearly 11 million more people than the first debate on Sept. 26 (52.4 million).

Also, like many sequels, the reviews weren't great. 

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Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage.com

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but no thriller is scarier than our current economic crisis. At least not according to the suits who run Hollywood.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Dominic Monaghan and Freddy Rodriguez have signed on to star in Fortuna, a horror flick set in the not-too-distant future of 2100, when global economic and climate crises lead to the elimination of the middle class, leaving only the megarich and the severely poverty stricken.

Talk about fingers on the pulse.

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ABC/KELSEY McNEAL

Oh, those reality-TV producers, always trying to throw us for a loop.

Get the latest elimination proceedings after the jump—and find out how Dancing With the Stars is dealing with Misty May-Treanor's premature demise.

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FX

At least Minnie Driver will have more time to spend with her baby boy.

A rep for FX confirmed to E! News Tuesday that the network has pulled the plug on The Riches, the critically lauded yet extremely niche dark comedy that starred Driver and Eddie Izzard as grifters who assume the identity of a dead rich couple and along with their kids move right into the deceased's posh neighborhood.

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Cartoon Network; NBC

Star Wars: The Clone Wars premiered big. Friday Night Lights premiered…well… Anyway, it premiered. 

When The Clone Wars bowed in theaters in August, it was called a glorified TV pilot, and sure enough it brought glory to Cartoon Network—4 million viewers for Friday's back-to-back episodes, a new record for the cable network.

Friday Night Lights' third-season opener was watched by, um, 400,000, The New York Times reported, down, um, 6 million viewers from last fall's premiere. But don't punt the football yet: FNL is running exclusively right now on DirecTV, the subscription-only satellite system that helped save the series.

Possibly in need of saving soon: NBC's Heroes , which hit another new low last week (9.5 million) and was down again last night. So no one's watching, right? Not quite.

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