» Angie Argabrite

You may know Michelle Trachtenberg as 'Gossip Girl''s (the CW, Mon., 9PM) resident bad girl, Georgina. But this season Trachtenberg hopes you'll also get to know her as brand-new nurse Chloe on the freshman hospital drama 'Mercy' (NBC, Weds., 8PM).

The busy ingenue found time to dish with AOL TV about how Georgina's like the devil, how Trachtenberg got into the head of good girl Chloe -- and whether she'll revisit her vampire past one way or another (probably not a 'Buffy' movie, but maybe reuniting with Alan Ball for 'True Blood').

TV fans, it's your big day! OK, maybe you don't take it as personally as we do (it is our job, after all). At the very least, today's a good day for some of your favorite TV stars -- and by now, they know who they are (we're sure many a celeb was happy to be roused out of warm beds in the wee hours of the West Coast morning by excited calls from family, friends or publicists).

If you don't know, but want to, check out our Emmys package. (And yes, the news is fantastic for '30 Rock' and its stars -- besides nominations for Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin, three more of their castmates got the golden ticket, plus three actors who guest-starred on the show!)

TV has been wall-to-wall Michael Jackson since his untimely death on Thursday. We asked the writers at our sister site, TV Squad, their impressions of the TV coverage on Thursday night, after we all learned of Jackson's passing. Read on to learn what some of them said.

"There aren't many people who can make the death of Farrah Fawcett (or Ed McMahon, for that matter) seem like minor news, but Michael Jackson managed to ... But all three networks were able to integrate the two tributes quite well, giving Farrah the time she deserved while concentrating on Jackson's life and death. The '60 Minutes' interview with Ed Bradley from 2003 was the most striking thing to me; it showed how out-of-touch the man was in the last few years. It also struck me that it's barely five years later and both Bradley and Jackson are now gone." -- Joel Keller

Catherine Bell's no stranger to TV stardom -- she was fan favorite Lt. Col. Sarah MacKenzie on the long-running hit show 'JAG.' Now she's part of the ensemble cast on another hit series, 'Army Wives' (Lifetime, Sun., 10PM), as Denise Sherwood, who's experiencing something of a midlife crisis. In just the first two episodes of the new season, Denise loses her job, her lover and the support of her friends. Not to mention the very real possibility of her estranged husband going down in the line of fire.

AOL TV caught up with the 'Army' beauty on her character's high-drama storyline, the possibility of a 'JAG' reunion ... and why she turned down Playboy (for a lot of money).

Kyra Sedgwick was once best known for playing Julia Roberts' sister in 'Let's Give Them Something to Talk About.' But that was before Sedgwick found 'The Closer' (new season starts Mon., June 8, 9PM), the hit TNT crime drama in which she stars as Brenda Leigh Johnson, an Atlanta transplant heading up a special crimes task force in L.A. Think Columbo, with a much nicer trench coat and a desk drawer full of sugary treats.

We caught up with Sedgwick to discuss the new season, the secret to her long and happy union with Kevin Bacon ... and which stripper role she desperately wanted to play.

"I was very, very nervous that I was not going to be able to do that, and that I was going to get fired"

You may know Callie Thorne as "Crazy Sheila" Keefe from 'Rescue Me.' Most fans do -- and when they call her that on the street, she answers. For five years now, Thorne has been the unstable, bittersweet comic heart of the riotous and raw Denis Leary series that follows a crew of NYC firemen and their families surviving in a post-9/11 world (FX, Tues., 10PM).

We chatted with Thorne about Sheila's craziest moments, when she was scared she was going to be fired ... and why her castmates are afraid of her.

"... when you are working with somebody for four years, it's kind of uncomfortable to have to kiss them and be in bed with them."

In the hit procedural 'Bones' (Fox, Thurs., 8 PM), Emily Deschanel stars as forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperence Brennan, who's more comfortable with decaying bodies than she is with most living, breathing people. Deschanel is not Bones, though she did have a Brennan moment in our interview when we referred to her character as a "forensic pathologist" -- whoops!

The actress dished with us about the highly anticipated Brennan-Booth hookup, if we can expect to see her sister, Zooey, show up as a guest ... and which bones she just can't tell apart (Temperence would be so disappointed). -- By Angie Argabrite

"I laugh, I cry ... I always got a huge amount of enjoyment out of it ... "

Lorraine Bracco's enjoyed a long and fruitful film career ('Goodfellas,' 'The Basketball Diaries'), but you may know her best from HBO's groundbreaking mafia series, 'The Sopranos.' She was Dr. Jennifer Melfi, the psychiatrist unlucky enough to get panic-attack-ridden mob don Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) as a patient.

When we spoke with the Brooklyn-born actress about AOL TV naming 'The Sopranos' the best TV drama of all time, she was strikingly candid about her time on the show, which cast member wanted help getting into heaven ... and what lost role made her cry like a baby. -- By Angie Argabrite