‘Samantha Who?’ and ‘Chuck’ Latest Victims of Stunt Casting

This week, showrunners on two series continued the latest run of gimmick casting on scripted comedies. If you don’t recall, last season, Britney Spears appeared on two episodes of CBS’ How I Met Your Mother, while Lindsay Lohan scored a brief gig on ABC’s Ugly Betty and Paris Hilton did the same on NBC’s My Name Is Earl.

The two most recent parties to celebutante hype are ABC’s Samantha Who?, which will welcome Weeds alum Mary-Kate Olsen for a cameo, and NBC’s Chuck, which will have Hilton’s former Simple Life BFF Nicole Richie on for one episode. Neither show needs to give in to this kind of obvious begging for attention, but publicity is publicity, right?

And both series are certainly getting a lot of that following their networks’ announcements of the one-time guest stars. Judging from the ridiculous number of articles I’ve encountered on the castings, you’d think Oscar-caliber talent awaits fans of the two shows. Just to be clear: Not hardly.

Unsurprisingly, each woman will play a so-called bad girl on their respective episodes this fall, Olsen one who reminds title character Samantha Newly of her pre-amnesia bitchy self and Richie one who was spygirl Sarah Walker’s high school nemesis.

If either show decides to do some truly notable casting for their upcoming sophomore seasons, I’ll make sure to post that genuine news, too. Until then, I guess fluff like this will have to do.