Blog Posts by Tara Ariano

An opaque bra? More like the Modest Pumpkin. (Monty Brinton/CBS)Last night's episode of CBS's "How I Met Your Mother" revived the time-honored tradition of stuntcasting famous ladies to play romantic prospects for the show's single gentlemen — in this case, Ted (Josh Radnor), who's formerly hooked up with characters played by Laura Prepon, Sarah Chalke, and Jennifer Morrison. But although/because this latest guest star is arguably the most famous performer ever to dally with Ted, the episode left absolutely no doubt about whether she would end up as the titular future mother of Ted's eventual children: Naomi — better known as The Slutty Pumpkin — played by Katie Holmes, was as uninterested in Ted as he came to be in her.

Fans will recognize The Slutty Pumpkin as a mysterious figure of "How I Met Your Mother" lore, dating all the way back to the show's first season. Ted met the woman he knew only by her costume at a Halloween party in 2001. He knew her occupation (she was a marine biologist who'd studied penguins in Antarctica) and her drink (root beer and Kahlua, a.k.a. a "Tootsie Roll"), but not her name — which she never gave — or her number — which Ted wrote on the wrapper of a Kit Kat Lily (Alyson Hannigan) mistakenly handed out to a trick-or-treater. But every year afterward, Ted returns to the same party, wearing the same costume (a hanging chad), hoping to meet her again. It's basically exactly like Linus in the old Charlie Brown Halloween special, if Linus were holding a vigil for The Great Pumpkin in the hopes of getting it into bed.

In advance of the nationwide invasion of tiny ghouls, robots, and Doras the Explorer, the hosts of today's daytime talk show got into the Halloween spirit by performing in impressively well-executed costumes which, if you were at work, you missed.

The hosts of NBC's "Today" are famous for their group costumes, and this year was no exception. In fact, I'm not sure what they will possibly be able to do to top this next year. Watch right to the end to see who came back to the show for a very special cameo.

Even though David Tennant hasn't played the titular Time Lord of "Doctor Who" since last year, this video tribute to him — in which the show's cast, crew, and creative staff lip-synch the Proclaimers hit "(I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles" — didn't make it to YouTube until this weekend. Even if you're not into the show, it's impossible not to be charmed by the giddy, goofy joy displayed by everyone involved in this effort (none goofier than Tennant himself), including series creator Russell T Davies and guest stars like Timothy Dalton.

[BuzzFeed]

The maestro of "Mad Men." (YouTube)AMC's "Mad Men" will have a hard time getting much press coverage for the next several months: Though it's in production, it won't be back on TV until mid-2012. But series creator Matthew Weiner has managed to find an interviewer willing to give him more than an hour of air time to talk about the show, and himself: his sister.

Weiner is the star of the latest episode of "Media Mayhem," a web series hosted by his sister, Allison Hope Weiner. And though you might think the familial relationship would cause Matthew Weiner to relax his usual standards and tell her all kinds of plot details about the coming fifth season of "Mad Men," it...didn't.

The sitdown is more than an hour long, which means there's no chance any normal person on the internet is going to get through it. But I take my responsibility to you, dear reader, very seriously: I patiently watched the whole thing so that I could present you with the most compelling highlights.

We'll get much more of the Belchers. (Fox)We've known for months that Fox would bring its midseason series "Bob's Burgers" back for a second season; in a nice show of faith, the network renewed the series before the first had aired its finale. But today comes even better news for fans of the show: Instead of 13 episodes, the second season will boast a full episode order of 22.

Josef Adalian of New York magazine's Vulture blog reports that Fox has ordered nine more scripts of the sitcom. "Bob's" had been slated to return in 2012, but as Adalian notes, success for the animated series "Allen Gregory," which premiered last night, could delay the return of "Bob's Burgers" to the 2012-13 TV season. (Which would be a tragedy, in this commentator's view. I know pilots aren't always representative of a series as a whole, but wow, that episode was TERRIBLE. Poorly rated, also, particularly considering that its lead-in was the Halloween episode of "The Simpsons.")

Mr. (Pan Am) Vice-President. (Hulu)Suddenly Everywhere: Scott Cohen

You Might Know Him From: His recurring role as Max Medina, sometime fiancé to Lorelai (Lauren Graham), on "Gilmore Girls," or as a series regular on the short-lived "Law & Order" spinoff "Trial By Jury."

First Location Of His Recent Campaign To Be Suddenly Everywhere: As Nico Careles, a high-level NFL "fixer" and sometime rival to therapist Dani (Callie Thorne), on USA's "Necessary Roughness.

Next Location Of His Recent Campaign To Be Suddenly Everywhere: As Ira, inventor of the car periscope, whose marriage to a somewhat plain woman (played by Aida Turturro) convinces Larry (Larry David) of his substance as a person, this summer on "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

Justin Timberlake appeared Friday as a guest on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" to promote his latest feature film, the generally well-received "In Time," but in the process did what his fans would probably rather see him do full-time: performed a musical number. Timberlake and Fallon teamed up to perform their latest medley of hip-hop hits. And while I don't want to spoil which tracks make it into Part 3 of the series, let's just say that if you felt the first two installments were shamefully light on Sir Mix-a-Lot, that situation has been remedied.

Another win. (Kevin Winter/NBCUniversal/Getty Images)Just as Adam Sandler is about to disgrace himself (and his drag alter ego) on the big screen in "Jack and Jill," his back catalog is being successfully mined for television: A series adaptation of Sandler's 2003 film "Anger Management" is coming to FX, with Charlie Sheen in the lead.

Sheen and showrunner Bruce Helford ("The Drew Carey Show") had shopped the show for a couple of weeks before finding it a home at FX, which will pair it with reruns of "Two and a Half Men" (which the network already airs, in syndication), starting next summer. According to the Hollywood Reporter, even though its initial run will be a conservative ten episodes, "[i]f those test run episodes reach a certain size viewership, another 90 will be ordered, as has been done with [Tyler] Perry's House of Payne and Meet the Browns at TBS." That number seems...alarmingly high.