Fox has begun casting for a second 13-episode installment of The Moment of Truth, a provocative new reality show, hosted by Mark Walberg (pictured), that gives away hefty amounts of cash to anyone who will admit deep, dark secrets in front of a national audience. The show’s second outing on Jan. 30 easily won its time slot among adults 18-49 (7.8 rating/19 share) and viewers (17.9 million) and is now the third-highest rated program of the 2007-08 season in the key demo behind American Idol on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Fox has ordered another 13 episodes of the show, in which contestants are a series of personal questions off-camera while they’re hooked up to a lie detector, but are not told how the machine registers their answers. The contestants then must answer some of the same questions before a TV audience, and if the answers are truthful, they win cash prizes. The next batch of fresh episodes could begin airing as soon as April, one Fox insider says.

So maybe she can’t dance, but we certainly know she can talk: Marie Osmond, who finished third last season on Dancing With the Stars, announced Tuesday that she’ll return to daytime in fall 2009 with her own syndicated talk show. This is Marie’s second attempt at emulating Oprah: She and brother Donny Osmond previously hosted an afternoon talk show in 1998, but it was canceled after only two seasons. Given all that she’s experienced in the last few years alone — the death of her parents, a painful divorce, and an embarrassing on-air fainting spell — Osmond admits she has much more to share with fans this time around. “I’ve been through pretty much everything,” says the 48-year-old mother of eight. “I don’t have a million nannies. I take care of my kids. I’m just about the most authentic person you can be.”

Osmond is also considering doing a prime-time special (or two) with Donny, who’s busy exploring his own options in TV. And no, they don’t involve sporting a pair of Danskins.

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“We’re ready to go back to work,” John Stamos told Hollywood Insider during the Sundance Film Festival last week, referring to ER‘s hiatus during the writers’ strike. “We have nine more episodes [to shoot this season]. And as awful as the strike has been — of course, I’m all for the writers — I think we’re going to get another season out of ER, a 15th season. So that’s the one good thing about it.”

NBC says that a decision has not been made regarding ER‘s fate next season, but the 44-year-old Stamos does have a point about it being a show that some folks take for granted. “It’s like having a beautiful painting in your house and for 15 years you keep walking by,” he said. “I tell them, ‘Stop and look at this painting.’ This show is just as powerful as almost anything on television right now. It still has legs. Which show casts three times and is still in the top 20?”

CBS ordered a 17th and 18th edition of Survivor for the 2008-09 season, which will make it the longest-running reality competition show on TV. Jeff Probst will return as host. The move follows a particularly successful performance by Survivor: China last fall; the 15th edition won its time period in viewers and key demographics every week. The Mark Burnett-produced show, which began on CBS in May 2000, has anchored the Eye’s Thursday lineup since February 2001.

Survivor: Micronesia, which will feature fans vs. Survivor favorites, premieres Thursday, Feb. 7. Casting for the 17th edition has already begun.

Starz is developing a new TV series based on the Best Picture Oscar-winning 2005 movie Crash. Don Cheadle (pictured), who starred in and produced the film, will also produce the series along with the film’s writer-director, Paul Haggis, co-writer-producer Bobby Moresco, and producers Bob Yari, Mark R. Harris, and Tom Nunan. Lionsgate, which distributed the movie, will also co-produce the show along with Starz. The Crash series, set to debut sometime this year and roll out 13 one-hour episodes, will be the cable channel’s first original drama series.

Before Zooey Deschanel stars with human cartoon Jim Carrey in the upcoming romantic comedy Yes Man, she’s starring in a cartoon. The actress/singer recorded a guest spot on Fox’s The Simpsons, playing a farm girl who helps Bart rescue a calf from death. The episode — which airs in April — sees the Bartman developing a crush on Deschanel’s character, and let’s just say that a marriage proposal may factor into this animal-saving situation. In other Simpsons guest-casting news, the recently Golden-Globed Glenn Close will reprise her role as Homer’s hippie-fugitive mom, Mona: In a May episode, Mother Simpson shows up unannounced at the family’s doorstep and declares that her activist days are over and that this time she’s staying for good.

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