As 24 fans discovered last night, President Palmer's duplicitous ex-wife Sherry is back in her husband's cross hairs. And making matters worse, TV's Lady Macbeth arrived on the scene armed with something far more unnerving than a new ulterior motive: a killer makeover.

As the character's portrayer, Penny Johnson Jerald, tells TV Guide Online, looking good is the best revenge. "If my man dropped me, I would certainly want to look better than I did last year," laughs the actress, who says she worked with 24's hair and make-up experts to create a more sophisticated, sexy — "less presidential-looking" — Sherry. "I was really careful about the hair, because last year, Sherry had very '80s hair. So, I decided to go with very '90s hair — very straight and bouncy. I also wanted to soften the eyes, the face, not make her so hard looking.

"She's a divorcée now," adds Jerald, "so [it makes sense] that she would want to look as hip as she can in the confines of the political world."

Truth be told, the 41-year-old former ER star had her own hidden agenda where Sherry's transformation was concerned. "When people met me in person they went, 'Oh my gosh, you're younger!' And I went, 'Yes! Of course I am!' So, [this season] I was trying to get closer to my own age, because Sherry's six years older than me."

So you thought Tori Spelling's TV career ended when her decade-long stint on Beverly Hills, 90210 did? Uh-uh, kids. Now, she's signed on to star in and produce her own NBC sitcom pilot. A script for the as-yet-untitled comedy is even being penned by Roseanne and Ellen scribe Lawrence Broch. But surely her TV producer papa, Aaron Spelling, must be involved somehow...

"Must be?!" protests Mr. Spelling. "It's not one of my shows, 'cause of just what you said. When you say it must be, that must mean she can't work for anybody else 'cause she can't get a job — and that's just not true. Oh boy! No, no, no, she won't work for me. I don't blame her. She takes so much flak, golly."

How does he feel about Tori headlining her own TV gig sans Daddy? "It's hard for a father to say this," he says, "but I think she deserves it. When she was on my show [90210], she worked very, very hard. I saw her in a movie called Trick that I don't think many people have seen. She played this gay, wild person. She was amazing! Amazing! As a matter of fact, I almost put her in an orphanage after that."

Tossing any cares about nepotism aside, Spelling goes on to praise his daughter's recent well-received L.A. stage production, Maybe Baby, It's You. "Tori did this two-person play where she played 11 roles," he recalls. "It really knocked us out. I only went four times! She was very good at it, and she would like to do theater."

Graduating from child starling on a popular TV show to "serious" adult actor is always a tough task. (Think Todd Bridges or Justine Bateman!) But though Lacey Chabert — who played violin virtuoso Claudia Salinger on Party of Five — has never landed in prison or drug rehab, she's had her share of stumbling blocks.

"I was on [the cover of] Stuff magazine about three years ago," the 20-year-old admits, wincing with regret. "But that was a different time. That's not the direction I want to go now. I'm not a person who's like, 'Hey, I'm a vixen now!' That's not me, and that magazine was not a representation of me at all."

While Chabert knows the racy lad mag wasn't her wisest move, it was an attempt to convince America that she's no longer a baby. "I think any transition is difficult," she acknowledges, "especially when I was in someone's living room going through puberty every week. People feel like they know [me], and a lot of people feel like I'm their little sister. So it's just kind of a process of reintroducing myself [as] who I am today... and not who I was eight years ago. Right now, I'm more focused on trying to find and get roles that are intelligent and stretch me as an actress."