When Elijah Wood says he's been blessed, we're inclined to agree with him. The well-adjusted 21-year-old — who's back in theaters Dec. 18 with The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers — has gracefully avoided the troubled child actor path. And better still, when his own epic trilogy completes its run (the final installment, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, opens Dec. 17, 2003), it seems unlikely that the versatile thesp will follow Mark Hammill's footsteps to has-beendom.

"I think I'll always be associated with [LOTR]... but that's an asset as long as it's not the only thing I'm known for," says Frodo Baggins's portrayer, who first gained respect with performances in The War and The Ice Storm. "I think I'm lucky to have had a career beforehand that I was at least recognizable for, to a certain degree."

Though most of the LOTR series was shot over two years ago, between promoting the flicks and the occasional trip back to New Zealand to shoot additional scenes, Middle Earth is still dominating Wood's life. But the two movies he's made in the meantime, Ed Burns's barely noticed Ash Wednesday and next year's coming-of-age indie Try Seventeen (with Mandy Moore and Franka Potente), reflect his desire to take a break from blockbusters.

"Oddly enough, I didn't get one script that had anything to do with fantasy, thankfully," he says. "[After LOTR], my intention was just to do movies that were a little bit smaller initially. I didn't really want to work at all for a while. When I got back from New Zealand, I wanted to relax and have my own time, because my time wasn't my own for almost a year and a half."

NBC's Ed is about to turn viewers into weight watchers. In September, Michael Genadry, who plays heavyweight high schooler Mark Vanacore, underwent gastric bypass surgery, and already he's dropped 70 pounds. Now, on Tuesday's episode (airing 8 pm/ET), the 24-year-old's character will submit to the procedure, which essentially reduces the size of one's stomach. "I started off over 450, and now I'm under 400," Genadry says proudly. "I don't see a difference, but everyone around me does."

Count exec producers Jon Beckerman and Rob Burnette among that number. So amazed were they by Genadry's transformation that they felt obliged to incorporate it into Mark's story. "We didn't want to mislead the audience [into thinking] that it would be possible for somebody like Michael to lose such a large amount of weight so quickly," explains Beckerman. "If we just portrayed this as if he went on Weight Watchers, we would be misrepresenting what was actually happening."

In order to deliver the most "accurate portrayal of the journey possible," Burnett says he and Beckerman consulted with Genadry's doctors to make sure they got all their facts straight. "But our purpose here is not to sell anyone on the idea of gastric bypass," adds Beckerman, who points out that the "surgery is not without controversy. There are those who argue against it and those who argue for it, and Michael was very open to us representing both viewpoints on the show."

Nothing against Charmed starlet Holly Marie Combs, but her Piper Halliwell has been less than charming lately. In fact, if we weren't so polite, we'd call this character something that only rhymes with witch. Is she still sad about Prue's (Shannen Doherty) demise? Or stressed out by the demons trying to kill her other sisters in sorcery week after week? Here, TV Guide Online asks Brian Krause — who plays Piper's saintly hubby, Leo — why his TV wife is such a damn shrew.

"Well, she's having a baby," he grins. Yeah, but this Wiccan witch was sportin' a snappish, abrasive 'tude well before she got preggers. "Before that?" Krause nervously replies. "I don't know. Boy, I don't know!"

We won't speak for the diplomatic Krause, but Leo sure seems whipped by his whiny bride. "Leo's the consummate nice guy," he says. "He's a pacifist, through and through, as a guardian angel. Not to say he can't get tough here and there, but he definitely puts up with somebody who's in a bad mood. He's an understanding guy."

The 33-year-old California native clearly wishes he weren't so sunny all the time. "Does Leo have a dark side?" he muses. "I don't think so. I'd love to have Leo taken over by evil for an episode! Or be more of a tough guy and lose his temper on the demons. But I like being the one on the show that gives the good, moral message out there to the audience."