You only get one chance at a 30th anniversary — much to the dismay of Dallas fans who last weekend paid as much as $1,000 to be essentially shut out of their favorite nighttime soap opera's cast reunion. Reports today cite a surge of gatecrashers at the show's famous Southfork Ranch last Saturday, when a barbecue and meet-and-greet with Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy, Linda Gray and others deteriorated into a near-riot of confused, angry ticketholders and sobbing protests that Falcon Crest would never do its fans like this.The anguish persists into this week, with many attendees outraged at promoters who failed to honor their tiered ducats — $100 for the basic, "Corn on the Cob with Charlene Tilton" package, we hear, all the way up to the $1,000, "Who Shot J.R.?" VIP access featuring all-you-can-eat burgers and three attempts at the Larry Hagman dunk tank. In their defense, organizers argued that ranch officials allowed in 2,000 walk-ups in addition to the 2,000 ticketed guests, all of whom fought for vaguely enforced access once inside the ranch. But whomever is to blame, heartbroken fans who waited three decades for the chance to pray at the altar of Jock Ewing (God rest his soul) want answers now:

Guy Ritchie was reunited today with his two sons (yes, even that turncoat Rocco) after weeks apart, but his estranged ex Madonna made sure that the happy meeting came attached to a brand-new set of strict stipulations. Though Autotuned utterances of "Contract, Guy, Contract" didn't seem to help her marriage any, the sinewy pop star hasn't demurred from the format, instead drawing up a list of 12 simple rules for seeing her pre-teen sons. The Daily Mail's got each one:

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: No on 8 Edition! 11/8 — I was at the "No on 8" rally/march/protest on Saturday night in Silver Lake when a friend pointed out GUS VAN SANT to me. I was skeptical at first, but the hoodie with something Portland related on it confirmed suspicions. He was with a younger (20s) blonde guy. Later at the same event, I saw one of the stars of Van Sant's Milk, JAMES FRANCO. He looked happy to be among his people. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

As if slow-motion footage of filmdom's most adorable puppy wasn't enough to make you race to see Jennifer Aniston's holiday movie season entry Marley & Me, the star has Phase 2 of the film's heart-tugging marketing campaign set to launch any day now. And we hear it's a good one, too, with new promotional partner Vogue signing on for Aniston's first public thwacking of husband-stealing Angelina Jolie.The Daily Mail reports that Vogue's December issue features cover girl Aniston posing along with the quote, "What Angelina did was very uncool" — one of the decade's more reserved understatements, no doubt, coming almost four years after Jolie's trysts with her Mr. and Mrs. Smith co-star Brad Pitt led to his and Aniston's divorce. The rest is clan-breeding, burger-photographing history, but an insider says Vogue will do what it can next month to restore Aniston's pride:

· Lance Bass told Jay Leno he came back from Russian cosmonaut training two inches shorter, which is why he tends to wear high heels now. · A riot broke out at a San Francisco mall today where Twilight star Robert Pattinson was appearing, with "one fan was trampled" and another's "nose broken as a result of being crushed up against the front doors to the mall." The event was canceled. TMZ has some video, but it's not nearly at goth-rampage-tastic as we had hoped. · South African Singer Miriam Makeba died on stage in Italy today of a heart attack at age 76. · After 10 years, KCRW music director and Morning Becomes Eclectic host Nic Harcourt is stepping down, though he'll still host a three-hour show on Sunday nights. · Time to take the Wonkette Which Emanuel Brother Am I? personality quiz!

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: 11/7 — I was at La Poubelle Friday night with my BFF. We were standing outside smoking a cigarette when I noticed two attractive girls hanging out with a guy that I believe was wearing Teva-like sandals with socks. This required further investigation and one of the girls was KIRSTEN DUNST. I tried to list her filmography to my friend, but all I could recall was Wag the Dog and Interview with a Vampire. In any event, I don’t think she liked me studying her, but she was wearing a coat that appeared to be made out of Fozzie Bear and jeans that haven’t been popular since I shopped at 5-7-9 in seventh grade. Her skin was quite dewy, however. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

The bitter online video fight between former Enterprise crew mates William Shatner and George Takei today reached what appears to be its penultimate round, with Shatner and his daughter/Star Trek grudge repository Liz discussing what exactly it might take to arrange peace between the actors.We can't be sure if Shatner's professed annoyance with his onetime co-star stems more from his recent accusations on Entertainment Tonight or simply that ET syndicated Takei's grievance while Shatner's crack psychoanalysis episodes wither on YouTube, but in any case, there can be no mistaking the tentative olive branch extended herein. We hope Takei accepts and that together, they may reach the final frontier of detente. Or at least that Shatner can just get a copy of Takei's wedding video and call it good. [YouTube]

Last week, addled ghost flapper Courtney Love celebrated the elections the best way she knew how: with a confused blog entry indicating she mistakenly voted "yes" on the anti-gay Proposition 8. Not one to let Drew Barrymore and James Franco hog all the credit, Love has now posted a series of blog updates meant to rectify the matter:

A Goatee Too Far: A little more than a year-and-a-half after his infamous leather-bar amateur-night shimmy with Ellen DeGeneres, John Travolta's new look in the thriller From Paris With Love goes about as far as the actor has yet gone to reinforce his straight creds. Stop already, John — you had us with the muumuu in Hairspray! Now we just feel guilty. [WWTTD]

When it comes to beloved TV childhood memories gone sour, it seems few shows deliver with the consistency and longevity of The Brady Bunch—more specifically, the mother's side of the family. From little Cindy's 8:30 a.m. hangover upchuck on live talk radio, to Marcia's syphilis-fueled cocaine binges at the bottom of a 40-person Playboy Mansion man-castle, it seems these lovely girls with hair of gold have seen their fair share of hard livin'.But what of Jan—the oft-forgotten middle-child, who had seemingly clung to the straight-and-narrow? Well, if this clip from the Brady Week edition of the new, Christopher "Peter" Knight-hosted Trivial Pursuit: America Plays is any indication, Eve—while far from the most badass of the Brady bad girls—can drop a well-placed F-bomb with the best of them. (And yes, the scandalized fellow to her left is Mike "Bobby" Lookinland. According to the show's website, Maureen "Marcia" McCormick—estranged from Plumb since she spread rumors the two had experimented with Bradysexuality—was the only no-show. Hmmm...) [YouTube via VampireHours]

Last week, STV laid down the scoop on the Chappelle-Lipton tilt [8 PM, Bravo], but there's other options for when Chappelle goes not crazy. WATCH Gossip Girl [8 PM, CW] - Cyndi Lauper guests on tonight's episode. Blair (Leighton Meester) tries to break up Eleanor (Margaret Colin) and her new boyfriend (Wallace Shawn). Jenny (Taylor Momsen) bunks with Agnes (Willa Holland). Serena (Blake Lively) learns something unsettling about Aaron (John Patrick Amedori). Dan (Penn Badgely) plans to write an expose on Bart (Robert John Burke), which gets him on Chuck's (Ed Westwick) bad side. Normally, we'd cut the plot summary down to our favorite characters, but we like all these people, unlike the 1,476 characters on Heroes.

As exit strategies go, Daniel Craig's long view on stepping away from James Bond is the most progressive we've encountered in some time: At a Quantum of Solace press conference last week in Rome, Craig suggested that Barack Obama's election win had perhaps laid the groundwork for a black 007. Admittedly, we hadn't yet considered the "action-movie franchise" component of Obama's social influence, but at least one critic opened the discussion online — and this only days after Beyoncé Knowles made a public appeal for the role of Wonder Woman in the long-delayed (and presumed dead) comic-book adaptation. And so begins America's next essential civil rights debate: Have our blockbuster heroes moved beyond race?Clearly it depends on whom you ask. By at least one person's standards Batman is already Turkish, and Hancock recently depicted cinema's first drunk, misanthropic superhero as a black dude living on the streets. Global audiences threw $624 million at Will Smith in the latter film, and according to Craig, may be color-blind enough to greet a black Bond with similar largesse:

Last night's True Blood finally gave us some hard answers as to why hunky, lovelorn bar owner Sam Merlotte occasionally will pause from restocking the beer case to scratch behind his ear with his foot: He's a shapeshifter! "Shut the fuck up," you're likely saying, much as vampire-sexing cocktail waitress Sookie did when she first beheld her boss's amazing trick. (She was equally blown away by his ability to balance a biscuit on his nose without eating it, and say something that sounds a lot like "Obama!")Yes, it seems vampires aren't the only supernatural B-movie entities the population of Bon Temps has to mingle with on a regular basis. Sam was kind enough to lay out the shapeshifting rules: 1. He can turn into any animal, but leans towards dogs, because everyone loves a dog. 2. He needs an actual animal to use as the shapeshifting blueprint. 3. He can't do humans—too complex. 4. He can usually control the impulse, except on a full-moon night, at which point he can only turn back into a human once he falls asleep. 5. But that DOESN'T make him a werewolf—got it? But yes, werewolves do exist. 6. There's several thousand other shapeshifters out there, but he hasn't found them, and he doesn't know if it runs in genealogy because he was adopted. (And abandoned.) That still leaves a lot of questions unanswered: Should you feed your shapeshifter gluten-free kibble? What do you do if your shapeshifter doesn't get along well with other shapeshifters at the shapeshifter run? With only two episodes left, we doubt we'll learn everything there is to know about the ductile species. In the meantime, enjoy the above montage of Sam doing what he does best. Good boy! Attaboy, Sam! Whozagooboy? Yes you are!

Evidence! Though we were certain that was James Franco at the Drew Barrymore vehicle known as the Silver Lake Prop 8 protest, here's photographic proof, thanks to Deeply Shallow. In a clever career move, Franco is seen appealing to both of his 2008 audiences: the gays who will flock to see his turn in Milk, and the Pineapple Express-worshiping stoners who know a deeply toked face when they see one. (Sorry, Nights in Rodanthe fans — Franco's unbilled cameo warranted nary a bit of synergy.) Click through for full-size. [Deeply Shallow via Towleroad]

It's Pretty Much Over When the Gay Sheepherder Fails To Sing. Hey, gays—want another slap in the face? The departure of its artistic director means that New York City Opera's lofty plans to mount an opera based on Brokeback Mountain have fallen through. Sadly, we'll never hear the sweet sounds of Jack Twist's angelic tenor and Ennis del Mar's more dominant baritone on arias like, "You Know I Ain't Queer (Me Neither)," and "You Need to Shut Your Slop-Bucket Mouths, You Hear Me?" nor will we experience the full fury of a 300-person choir singing the "Carmina Burana"-esque climax accompanying Ennis's fateful first "taking" of Jack in their hillside pup-tent. [Variety]

Over the weekend, Mickey Rourke and Evan Rachel Wood demonstrated markedly different ways of attacking rumors about a romance blossoming from their deep, combustible chemistry on The Wrestler. You probably don't need the accompanying video to know which one played the "Tell that faggot who wrote all that shit in the paper I'd like to break his fucking legs" card versus the other party's "We are proud of the film we made together and I hope people will focus on the film and not get distracted by any nonsense," but just in case any ambiguity persists, let it be clear: Rourke has been and always will be a one-woman-at-the-Chevron kind of guy. Period.

How's this for a cliffhanger: ratings for NBC's Heroes have dropped precipitously this season, leading to the firing of two producers, an Entertainment Weekly cover story asking whether the show can be saved, and now, a NY Times article that lays the blame on Jeff Zucker, Ben Silverman and show creator Tim Kring. According to the media frenzy, Heroes has suddenly undergone a drastic creative plummet in its third season. Here's the thing though: the show? Never that good!Sure, when Heroes premiered in 2006, it had a couple of things going for it, namely: freshness, a good villain, and a series of wicked, show-ending cliffhangers. Still, the problems that EW and the NYT are citing in the current season were with Heroes from the start. The show has always had too many characters, and even in the first season, many lacked a compelling reason to be there. That season was clogged with storylines (like the yawn-inducing travails of narrator Mohinder) that practically demanded to be fast-forwarded through, and the revelation that the show's writers were assigned separate plotlines in each episode instead of writing full scripts on their own is only partially to blame for the show's whiplashing segues. Eventually, the more interesting characters were saddled with so many powerful abilities that they needed to be repeatedly incapacitated to move the plot along, causing heroes like the time-jumping Hiro to become annoyingly extraneous. Also, the acting is, uh... well, just watch this clip. Yeah, it's at least campy, but in a "best show on the Sci-Fi Channel" kind of way. Actually not even that, because they have Battlestar Galactica. So maybe in a "third or fourth best show on the Sci-Fi Channel" kind of way. All we're saying is that if a show is desperately hanging onto an actress like Ali Larter, it won't exactly be burning up the Emmys. Heroes doesn't need to be saved — it's always been like this. Sometimes, when the shock of the new wears off, reappraisals like this can occur (in much the same way, America has finally come to grips with its embarrassing Life is Beautiful phase). Don't head to Heroes expecting great acting, skillful plotting, and emotional resonance. Enjoy it for what it is meant to be: a showcase for Milo Ventimiglia to take off his shirt.

· Just in time for the Re-Branding of the U.S.A.™: Effects legend and The Wolf Man director Joe Johnston has been hired to direct First Avenger: Captain America. [THR] · The guys behind The Tudors are developing another Showtime series based on Camelot, the Arthurian, not Kennedian, legend. [Variety] · Still in a perpetual state of contract limbo, SAG is "vigorously" enforcing the ban on any non-union work for its members—particularly in new-media productions. So you can forget that arc on David Faustino's Star-ving, OK? [Variety] After the jump: What polarizing cable pundit will be with us for four more years?· Keith Olbermann has renewed his MSNBC contract for four more years, despite losing the title of handsomest host at the cable network to its newest sensation, Rachel Maddow. [Variety] · Lifetime has picked up a full season of its mom-in-a-garage-band sitcom, Rita Rocks. [THR]

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: 11/9 — Right before showtime at the Bobby Brown, Johnny Gill and Ralph Tresvant show at the Greek, MARTIN LAWRENCE and his date walked in with an entourage of people. He had some diamond-encrusted eyeglasses that look like they cost more than my car. MO'NIQUE was there really early with a guy and two women, and they were eating chicken tenders and fries. She was really nice to everyone who came up to her, even saying, "I love you, too" to the old man across the way who told her "I love you" and then kept flipping her off. She laughed. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

When disco people did that weird basketball referee "traveling" motion dance and licked their cocaine-stained gums while a sparkly disco ball twirled overhead, they probably felt like the party would never stop. But stop it did, in grinding and ugly fashion, when the hedonistic days of Studio 54 ran headfirst into a very un-far-out recession in the early 1980's. Some twenty-five years later, we find ourselves in a similar situation. The early aughts saw the rise of the Tara Reid and Lindsay Lohan mentality, one that celebrated and encouraged hard, rusty-jointed partying (and simulatneously loved to condemn it). Sure there was a war on and the world seemed to be ending, but when one thing ends another begins, and these folks wanted to hurl themselves, underpantsless crotches first, into the big new whatever. And now... well, now we're staring down the barrel of a serious recession, Crazy Britney is dead, and Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens, a Rooney and Garland for the iGeneration, are puttin' on a show to the glittery tune of trillions of dollars. Like the dirty bliss era of disco before it, is this new party era being killed by a recession? We think so!