Television

Before celebrity rehab meant, well, Celebrity Rehab, it often meant visiting Barbara or Diane.

In return for killer ratings, Walters and Sawyer (or one of their rabid competitors) could be counted on to offer up something approximating empathy to the Monicas and the Mels, and after eliciting a few tears, send the wayward luminaries on their way, vowing to sin no more.

But Britney Spears' handlers, whoever they are this month, rewrote that playbook when they decided their pop tart/paycheck needed a temp job instead.

And from the breathless coverage of Spears' two-day stint on CBS' How I Met Your Mother, I'd say it's worked.

Now that she's been praised by everyone from the show's creator to the guy who arranges the Krispy Kremes on the craft-services table for her hitherto unknown ability to walk and talk at the same time, Spears' image is so bright and shiny I'm going to seem just plain mean when I point out that choosing a sitcom with the word "Mother" in it might not be the best way to make people forget you've lost custody of your children.

But then court-approved parent Kevin Federline was praised earlier for playing a loutish rocker who walked all over a more talented singer (Kate Voegele) in the CW's One Tree Hill.

Maybe counterintuitive casting's the way to go.

Anyway, I'm willing to give anything a try that doesn't involve two hours of watching a woman with a mysteriously blurred face feign concern as some poor creature — every pore visible — writhes like a trout that snapped at a shiny lure.

So as the network-news gift baskets pile up in the foyer of Eliot and Silda Spitzer's Fifth Avenue apartment, I hope they'll give some thought to Eliot's next move — assuming Mrs. Spitzer is interested in any move of Mr. Spitzer's that doesn't involve changing locks — and ask themselves: What would Britney do?

The ex-governor, who made his name as a tough-minded prosecutor, is bound to think Law & Order first.

After all, there's hardly an actor in New York not living off tips who doesn't have at least one credit from L&O or its spin-offs in his Playbill biography.

But since it's hard to imagine the Spitzer saga isn't already in development for early next season — with Client 9 somehow involved in a homicide — I'm thinking even Britney would know better than that.

I vote for comedy.

Charlie Sheen, whose own hooker experiences are the stuff of legend, found redemption playing a slightly sanitized version of what he insists is his former self on CBS' Two and a Half Men, a gig that's proved more durable than his marriage to Denise Richards. She may not love him, but more than 13 million people disagree.

Snagging a role on America's most-watched comedy could be shooting high, though. If How I Met Your Mother seemed unbecomingly eager to welcome Britney, it might have been because its ratings have never quite matched its reviews.

Plenty of other sitcoms could use the kind of boost "HIMYM" hopes to get from Spears' guest shot, which will air Monday (7:30 p.m.), including NBC's 30 Rock.

But though Rock tapes in New York, I'd recommend against it for Spitzer, who might not enjoy having Tina Fey turn him into roadkill as much as the rest of us would enjoy seeing it. A show that regularly skewers its own network isn't likely to go soft on anyone else.