So, will Sydney’s baby have more than one name?
Jennifer Garner is expecting a baby, so her “Alias” character will be too – even though she’s a globe-trotting spy.
“We are going to embrace the fact that she’s pregnant,” ABC programming chief Stephen McPherson said of Garner’s character, Sydney Bristow.
But the show will focus on making the situation realistic and not “campy,” he added.
“We also don’t want to put her in situations where she’s endangering herself and the baby,” McPherson told TV critics.
Garner, 33, and Ben Affleck, 32, her co-star in the 2003 movie “Daredevil,” wed in June. Their baby is due around Christmas.
“Alias” returns Sept. 29 for its fifth season in a new Thursday night time slot.
Asked if he thought the show might lose male viewers who eagerly anticipate seeing Garner in action, McPherson replied: “She’ll be able to run a fair amount.”
But to protect the show’s sex-appeal quotient, a younger agent who is being mentored by Sydney will be added, he said.
What a sad, sad song
Country singer Mindy McCready apparently had attempted suicide when she was found unconscious in a Florida hotel lobby last week, and a man charged last spring with trying to kill her was with her at the time.
On-again, off-again boyfriend William McKnight was charged with attempted criminal homicide and aggravated burglary in an attack on the 28-year-old entertainer earlier this year at her Nashville home.
McKnight told authorities that McCready had taken a large amount of two substances (which police refused to name) and drank a lot of alcohol. He gave them a four-page suicide note he said she had written.
A few days before the attack, McCready was arrested and charged with driving under the influence and driving on a suspended license. Last year, she pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining the painkiller OxyContin.
The Mirror was out of line
A lawyer for Kate Moss says the British supermodel has accepted substantial libel damages from a newspaper that claimed she had collapsed into a coma after taking cocaine.
An article published in Britain’s Sunday Mirror and on the newspaper’s Web site in January alleged that during a visit to Barcelona, Spain, in June 2001, Moss collapsed into a drug-induced coma and had to be revived after taking large amounts of cocaine.
Her lawyer declined to reveal the settlement amount.
And speaking of moss …
The Rolling Stones celebrated Mick Jagger‘s 62nd birthday on Tuesday by announcing the Sept. 6 release of “A Bigger Bang,” their first studio CD in eight years.
The title reflects “their fascination with the scientific theory about the origin of the universe,” the band said.
The Stones kick off a world tour Aug. 21 at Boston’s Fenway Park.
No deviled ham for her
“American Idol” Carrie Underwood and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin have been voted “World’s Sexiest Vegetarians” in PETA’s annual online poll.
Underwood, a 22-year-old Oklahoma native, wore a “V for Vegetarian” T-shirt on the Fox show. Martin, 28, and wife Gwyneth Paltrow made headlines when they gave their 1-year-old daughter, Apple, a vegan birthday cake.
The birthday bunch
Cartoonist Jim Davis (“Garfield”) is 60. Actress Sally Struthers is 57. Actress Georgia Engel (“The Mary Tyler Moore Show”) is 57. Actor Michael Hayden (“Murder One”) is 42. Actress Elizabeth Berkley is 33. Singer Afroman is 31.