I'd buy Dianne Wiest as Parker Posey's mom, easily. The Oscar-winning thesp has signed on for a recurring role on Fox's midseason comedy "The Return of Jezebel James," which means that creator Amy Sherman-Palladino has another solid actress and intriguing character to write for.

Wiest will play Talia, the mother of the two very different sisters, Sarah and Coco, played by Posey and Lauren Ambrose, around which the "Jezebel James" conceit is built. Wiest hasn't done much TV since her 200-2002 stint as D.A.  Nora Lewin on NBC's "Law & Order." She bagged an Emmy in 1997 for her guest shot on Disney Channel's "Road to Avonlea" to go with her two supporting actress Oscars, for 1986's "Hannah and Her Sisters" and 1994's "Bullets Over Broadway."

There's still no firm preem date set for "Jezebel James" but it's expected to land around the time Hurricane "Idol" hits Fox in January. For a peek at "Jezebel James," click here for your entry into Clip Madness.

In an effort to rev up for the fall season, it's time to inaugurate what I intend to make a regular feature of this blog, namely lots of video snippets from our favorite, and even not-so-favorite and we're-not-sure-yet, shows.

Let's call it Clip Madness. (This edition was made possible by the kind folks at Fox and ABC who helped me quickly wrangle some clips. In subsequent weeks we'll spread the spotlight around to all the nets that care to offer up easy-to-embed snippets.)

Clip Madness is presented in the spirit of this wonderful time of year, the tail end of the honeymoon period when every new show is full of promise, this year's sleeper, a new "Friends," the next "CSI," a slow-building gem a la "The Office," etc. etc. Showrunners are starting to stock up on Mylanta, vodka and Vicodin, but network marketing mavens are in their element as they head into the final now-or-never stretch of piquing the American public's interest in what the programming department came up with this year.

(Pictured above: A scene you're not likely to see on ABC's "Pushing Daisies," for reasons that will become clear in the clip posted below. Pic of actors Lee Pace and Anna Friel kissing comes from the Aug. 16 screening of "Daisies" at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.)

Any sesh with writer-producer Amy Sherman-Palladino is always a treat for the ear, and eye if you share her hat fetish. She talks as fast and with a rapier wit; she is her own best character. Amy and her husband Dan Palladino are up for the big second act following the WB Network's beloved "Gilmore Girls" in the coming season with the new Fox half-hour "The Return of Jezebel James," starring Parker Posey as a successful book publisher who hires her slacker younger sister to carry her baby after learning that she cannot conceive.

It's hard to believe that anyone could channel Amy's spirit and words as well as "Gilmore's" Lauren Graham, but Posey surely does with her own trademark sweetly goofy free-spirit. Posey, known as the queen of indie film, said she'd never seen "Gilmore Girls" but was taken with the "Jezebel James" script when she read it in a laundromat in Albuquerque, New Mexico while filming the upcoming feature "The Eye." Posey had no experience in series TV but she's found she likes the rhythms of the work on the Gotham-based production. It's in the get-it-done spirit of indie pics done on a shoestring budget.
"I like to work," Posey said. "This work is tight...clear...calm...assertive...like (dog trainer) Cesar Millan. I don't want to go in my trailer and be all moan-y all the time. You get bored when you're working on big movies and not doing anything. I really like this" shooting sked, Posey said.