‘Alias’ rejoins ‘Lost’ temporarily

“Alias” has never enjoyed better ratings than it did last season, when it followed “Lost” in ABC’s Wednesday lineup. The network will re-create that pairing for a couple of weeks next month.

Unfortunately for “Alias,” in at least one of those weeks “Lost” will be a repeat, meaning it won’t get the benefit of a huge lead-in.

The temporary schedule switch will happen Dec. 7 and 14, with “Alias” taking the place of “Invasion,” which was set for a run of repeats, at 10 p.m. EST both nights. “Lost” is scheduled to air a rerun on the 7th; ABC hasn’t announced whether the Dec. 14 episode will be new or old.

Pre-holiday ‘Deal’ made by NBC

NBC will try to make some ratings noise in the normally fallow week before Christmas with a showcase for its game show “Deal or No Deal.”

The show, a test of will in which a player decides to keep an unknown amount of cash or take an offer from an unseen “banker,” will air over four consecutive nights, starting Dec. 19. It will fill the 8 p.m. ET spot each night, giving the network four hours of original programming to air opposite a slew of repeats on other networks.

“‘Deal or No Deal’ has a proven international track record, and we think it has all the drama and excitement to keep American audiences on the edge of their seats,” NBC Entertainment president Kevin Reilly says.

The show, which originated in Australia, will distribute 26 briefcases, each containing some amount of money at the beginning of each episode.

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The contestant then eliminates the briefcases one by one, still not knowing how much is inside each one.

Periodically, the banker will ask whether the contestant wants to trade in his or her briefcase for the average of what’s in the remaining cases, prompting the show’s title question. If the player has eliminated the low-value cases, the bank’s offer will get higher as the game goes on. If not, he or she may be left with very little at game’s end.

Comedian Howie Mandel will host “Deal or No Deal.” Endemol USA (“Fear Factor,” “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”) is producing the show for NBC.

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“24′ ADDS TRIO TO DAY FIVE

Fox’s “24” is expanding its cast some more as it readies its fifth season, adding three veteran actors to the ensemble.

British actor Julian Sands (“Timecode,” “A Room with a View”) will play the villain in the coming season, which picks up 18 months after the events of last year. Peter Weller (“Robocop”) and three-time Emmy nominee JoBeth Williams will be on the side of good – we think.

The show is scheduled to premiere over four hours on two nights, Jan. 15 and 16, with a crisis looming after “national security is brutally breached.” But Jack Bauer (series star Kiefer Sutherland) is nowhere near the Counter Terrorism Unit, as he’s presumed dead to all but a few people within CTU. Instead, he’s taken up a new life with a woman (Connie Britton, “Spin City”) and her teenage son (Brady Corbet).

Weller, who stars in NBC’s remake of “The Poseidon Adventure,” will play Christopher Henderson, the federal agent who recruited Jack to CTU more than a decade ago. Williams, recently seen in “Fever Pitch” and TNT’s “14 Hours,” will play Henderson’s wife, Miriam.

Sands’ character, Vladamir Bierko, is a billionaire and, as Fox bluntly states, a “bad guy.” He appeared in the A&E film “Napoleon” in 2002 and recently guest-starred on “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.”

Weller, Williams and Sands bring to five the number of new cast members on “24” this season. Jean Smart (“Frasier,” “Munich”) will play the first lady, and Sean Astin (“The Lord of the Rings”) has joined the CTU team.

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“SOUTH PARK’ GUYS PARKED AT PARAMOUNT

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the mad scientists behind “South Park,” have reportedly signed a three-year, first-look deal with Paramount Pictures.

According to the industry trades, the duo will become CEOs of a new shingle. The name of the confusingly titled entity? Trunity, a Mediar company, a division of True Mediar, a Unity Corpbopoly. Yes, that’s funnier than anything that’s happened on “South Park” this season.

“Trunity: Entertainment solutions for the modern world,” appears to be the pair’s only comment.

Parker and Stone have long been housed under the Viacom umbrella. In addition to their many years of pumping out new episodes of “South Park” for Comedy Central (their current contract runs through 2008), they’ve also released the features “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut” and “Team America: World Police” through the studio. The “South Park” feature brought in a strong $80 million domestic gross, but “Team America” was something of a disappointing, doing only $30 million.

The new deal calls for the pair to write, direct and produce features. They’ve brought in regular collaborators Anne Garefino and Jennifer Howell as president and senior vice president at Trunity.

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“THE O.C.’ ACTOR PLANS THANKSGIVING WEDDING

Jimmy Cooper is hoping for real marital bliss the second time around.

Tate Donovan, who plays a divorcee on Fox’s “The O.C.,” will wed fiancee Corinne Kingsbury over the Thanksgiving weekend, according to published reports.

The actor, 42, proposed to his entrepreneur girlfriend, 29, on a trip to Italy in March. They had been dating for 18 months.

He says that he knew he asked the right girl because she was there to help him complete the New York Marathon earlier in the month in which he placed 2,646th out of 37,000 runners.

“As I approached mile 24, I was in severe agony,” he recalls. “My fiancee saw what was happening and literally picked me up and ran with me in her flats and silk blouse the final two miles.”

Donovan was once engaged to his “Love Potion No. 9” co-star Sandra Bullock and had dated Jennifer Aniston. He currently appears in George Clooney’s film “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

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AP-NY-11-18-05 1653EST