All of you who were hoping that Vulture hero Hugh Jackman would reprise his role as the dashing host of the Oscars were dealt a minor blow on Tuesday when it was announced that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are going to tag-team the duties (after Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Tina Fey all turned AMPAS down). This got the self-described "lucky" Alec off the hook with his daughter Ireland, for it turns out that he was wrongly credited as being the person who gave her that Lil Wayne birthday cake last week. And if you're wondering what Hugh Jackman thinks of this arrangement, well, it turns out he's totally cool with it.

So, what else happened this week?

For Mariah Carey, the road to transforming herself into Ms.Weiss, an ally of the struggling protagonist in Precious, was hard — and hairy. Very hairy. To judge by her recent comments to the press, the diva’s notable performance as the weary, Rayon-clad, makeup-free social worker is dominated in her mind by the presence of one rather intense fake mustache, in addition to the other elements of the look that director Lee Daniels insisted on (he had Carey’s breasts bound and bags added to underneath her eyes, for instance). “I could see her hands shaking” as he makeup went on, Daniels told the L.A. Times. Hear Carey’s laments in the following quotes.

Until last week's episode of Community, we had sort of been on the fence about the newest addition to the Peacock's Thursday-night lineup. However, something magical happened during the Halloween episode and, for the first time since the show's debut, the characters finally seemed to leap off the written page and began resembling something closer to believable portrayals of actual human beings (as opposed to phony archetypes of quirk). Sure, it didn't hurt that Britta was dressed up as an impossibly adorable squirrel, but what we reacted to most was Jeff letting his guard down and deciding to embody something other than a sarcastic asshole for a change. Sadly, last night's episode was a bit of a letdown from the highs of the week before, but hey, at least we got to see what snarkmeister supreme Joel McHale looks like without his shirt on!

Episode one’s study in meta might as well have been study hall; episode three, sadly, doubled back to muse on red-state humor. Last night’s episode — number four — promised more such high jinks (“Audition Day” — outsiders, in other words, trying to get in). But we believe it may come to be seen as the moment when the show went from snarky commentary to the very embodiment of its obsession: digestible, middle-of-the-road sitcom humor. Which would be fine with us, except that what this seems to mean is fewer and less absurd jokes — opportunistic, non-sequitur laughs discounted in favor of chuckles meant to reinforce character traits. Still, if it wasn’t It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, it was funnier than most television. (By the way, did anyone else find The League hilarious last night?) The best part has to be when Jenna and Tracy take to his Hummer to recruit walking stereotypes for the audition. Watch below — it’s bi-LARIOUS!

Every week between now and February 2, when the nominations are announced, movies and stars will help themselves — or, sometimes, hurt themselves — in the Oscar race. Vulture's Oscar Futures will listen to insider gossip, comb the blogs, and out-and-out guess when necessary to track who's up, who's down, and who's currently leading the race for a coveted nomination.

Best Picture	UP: Precious. You've been hearing about it since January and it's finally here! Mostly great reviews affirm its strong hand this season. But ...	DOWN: Precious. ... are these first sounds of the long-anticipated backlash? New York's David Edelstein didn't love it and Armond White's over-the-top pan got more attention than the raves (and some even agree with him, a little).
	CURRENT PREDIX: Bright Star, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Invictus, Nine, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, A Serious Man, A Single Man, Up, Up in the Air

Since everyone who operates together sleeps together, this week's episode appropriately opens on the beds of Callie and Arizona and Meredith and McDreamy. It's the middle of the night, and everyone's pagers are going off. Well, everyone’s except for Meredith’s, whom we only see briefly this episode, and only while she's in bed with Derek.

It’s been a strange season for ongoing plotlines — that is, they keep getting dropped. The drama of the Jim and Michael co-manager transition never quite materialized, as exemplified by the forced B-plot this week, with Dwight trying to undermine Jim, a scheme no one, onscreen or off, cares about. This week, yet another promising story line appears to wrap itself up.

Suffering through Fringe withdrawal while the show was benched for two weeks during the World Series, we hoped that the first episode back would compensate by giving us fresh clues about the Pattern, Massive Dynamic, and the First Wave. Sadly, we learned nothing new about those mysteries, but this standalone episode did have one thing going for it: Agent Broyles.

Ken Tucker pointed out in his recent Entertainment Weekly review that, unlike on Lost, FlashForward’s creators “don’t test our patience in teasing out info — if anything, they dump new pieces of the puzzle into our heads every week.” Instead of the puzzle work, this week we get shovelfuls of emotion as several characters confront the meaning of fate, as well as a slew of plot points and the most dramatic twist to date. And finally, someone fucks with the future.