‘Comeback’ for Kudrow

At a pre-Emmy party Friday night, Sex and the City exec producer Michael Patrick King told TV Guide Online the title of the HBO comedy he’s developing for former Friends star Lisa Kudrow.

“It’s called The Comeback,” he said. “We start filming next month.”

King declined to provide further details, except to say that Kudrow “would not be playing herself” and that the show would be set in Los Angeles. But the Hollywood Reporter says Kudrow will play a former sitcom star staging a comeback.

In other Friends news, Kudrow’s former co-star Courteney Cox is also reportedly talking to HBO about a series project. She’d play an actress on a comeback trail and adjusting to life as a recovering alcoholic.

Traylor signs onto ‘Monk’

NEW YORK (AP) – Traylor Howard is joining the cast of “Monk.”

She will play a former bartender and single mother who becomes Monk’s assistant, the USA Network said this week. Tony Shalhoub stars as Adrian Monk, an obsessive-compulsive private eye.

Bitty Schram, who played Monk’s personal nurse, recently left the show. USA and Schram’s management said the split was amicable, and the network said “Monk” had decided to go in a “different creative direction.”

“Every successful series changes over the course of its life. We were fortunate to have Bitty Schram in our cast for two and a half seasons, and we are thrilled to have Traylor Howard join our cast now,” said Jeff Wachtel, USA’s executive vice president, in a statement.

Howard has appeared in several TV series, including “Boston Common” and “Braum and Alice.”

Production of new episodes will begin Sept. 23, the network said.

“Monk” is in the middle of its third season, with new episodes scheduled to air in January.

‘T2′ Furlong’s lobster job

Some people get arrested for a cause. Edward Furlong just got busted for some claws.

The “Terminator 2” actor was locked up Wednesday night in northern Kentucky for “alcohol intoxication in a public place” after he tried to liberate a group of lobsters from a local grocery store’s fish tank, reports The New York Post.

Furlong, a longtime animal-rights supporter who once refused to wear leather in a Calvin Klein ad, pulled the crustacean caper with friends at Meijer grocery store in Florence, Ky., according to a police report.

“The above and his friends were taking lobsters out of the tanks. When they were asked not to, they began to argue with management,” reads the report.

When cops tried to frisk Furlong, “He put his arms above his head and started spinning around,” an eyewitness said.

Furlong is on location for the filming of the movie “Jimmy & Judy” by first-time directors Jon Schroder and Randall Rubin. Schroder bailed Furlong out of jail after only three hours behind bars.