I’m going to be honest, I just don’t get the appeal of Ghost Hunters. Don’t get me wrong, I find ghost hunting itself fascinating. But, as a TV show? I just don’t get it. The show has been on TV for seven damn years and, presumably, every episode’s basically identical. There’s never going to be an episode where a ghost just walks into the frame and says “Boo.” And, if these guys actually did get real proof of some kind of paranormal event, it would be all over the news months before it ever got on the SyFy Channel. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by movies but, until one of these guys walks into the bathroom and rips his own face off, the whole endeavor seems rather dull.

So, yeah, I just don’t get it.

You know what I do get the appeal of, though? Seeing likable TV personalities wander around dark basements! Now, that makes sense to me as a television premise. So that’s why I’m all about these preview clips of Meredith Vieira guesting on the show and joining the team on a hunt.

With the announcement last week that long time MSNBC star Norah O’Donnell is jumping ship to CBS, many insiders are now asking what is going on over at the Peacock network? On air talent jumping between networks is nothing new but the sheer number of recent defectors both on air and off from NBC News and CNBC has to make you wonder whether there is something bigger at play here.

In a typically over-the-top farewell from TODAY to its departing co-host Meredith Vieira, the NBC morning show’s entire staff, from co-host Matt Lauer to Vieira’s replacement Ann Curry and every member of the show’s production team–all wearing matching t-shirts–took to Rockefeller Plaza in a lip sync performance right out of Glee.

Chairman of the Republican National Committee Reince Priebus declared on Today that Nancy Pelosi’s silence in not demanding Weiner’s immediate resignation was “outrageous.” Meredith Vieira wondered whether constituents should be able to decide his fate rather than the Democratic leadership, yet Priebus was unfazed in his call for the Weiner distraction to be put away as quickly as possible.

In a morning filled with tributes to departing TODAY‘s Meredith Vieira, the NBC morning show’s co-host told Matt Lauer she had no second thoughts about walking away from television’s dominant morning news program. “I know it’s right, but it’s hard.” In keeping with the show’s format, the morning was packed with surprises for Vieira, which she was clearly expecting.

MSNBC’s Rundown co-host Chuck Todd said farewell to his co-host Savannah Guthrie Friday, popping the cork for an on-set champagne toast as Guthrie prepares for her move to NBC’s TODAY. In a tweet about the morning, Guthrie told followers she and Todd were “kickin it like KLG and Hoda,” a reference to TODAY’s Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, who’ve been known to enjoy a late morning mimosa from time to time.

Meredith Vieira may be anxious to sleep in and relax when she leaves NBC’s TODAY later this year, but she didn’t get any peace in a visit with Ellen Degeneres on Ellen Monday. Degeneres aired hidden camera video of Vieira’s arrival at the studio for the interview–including the comic hiding in a dressing room and lunging at the unsuspecting morning show host. “I love scaring people,” said Degeneres, who joked about Vieira’s reaction to the prank–which had to be bleeped out. “You have a filthy mouth.”

The New York City hotel maid who accused IMF chief Domique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault will testify before a grand jury sometime today, according to her lawyer, Jeffrey Shapiro. Shapiro, who appeared on NBC’s TODAY, described his client as a woman who’s not only “a rape victim, the victim of a physical assault,” but also a woman who has not had “a moment of peace” since she reported the attack to hotel security. Shapiro says client has yet to return to her home, but is in “a safe place” with her fifteen-year old daughter as the criminal case moves forward.

Shapiro says his client’s a single mom who came to the U.S. for “a better life,” and has worked at the hotel for three years. A native of Guinea, Shapiro says his client comes “from a part of the world where laws were few and far between” and now, accusing a tremendously powerful man of a crime that could send him to prison, “she fears not only for herself, but maybe more importantly for her daughter.”

Passengers aboard a Cathay Pacific jet with a burning engine prayed together as the crew made an emergency landing early Monday morning. All 136 passengers and the flight’s crew survived the ordeal, but there were terrifying moments in the air, as NBC’s Mike Taibbi reported on TODAY Monday. “The flight took off at 1:12 a.m . bound for Jakarta, Indonesia but passengers heard the bangs, saw the lights go out and smelled smoke. Some passengers could see that one of the four engines was on fire. The crew of the airbus said they shut down the engine when they got a stall warning. With the plane shaking violently, the passengers were told they were headed back to Singapore. Many passengers started saying, ‘God save our flight, give us your protection,’ the prayers getting louder as they made it back to the airport.”

A Reuters photographer who was onboard the flight caught images of the terrified passengers as they put on life jackets in preparation for the emergency landing back in Singapore, and afterwards, as the shaken travelers emerged from the plane.

In her first comments since announcing on-air this morning that she would leave NBC’s TODAY in June, Meredith Vieira told reporters it was a “tough decision” that took months to make to decide to depart the program. “I had to go with my gut, but it doesn’t make it any easier.”

Vieira said she began considering a departure from television’s top-rated network morning show in January, but didn’t say anything about the move officially until she announced her decision Monday morning on the show–confirming one of the worst kept secrets in television. “It didn’t take WikiLeaks for this to come out,” said NBC News president Steve Capus.

An emotional moment this morning on The Today Show as Meredith Vieira officially announced her departure from the show which will take place next month. Sitting next to Matt Lauer, Al Roker, Ann Curry and Natalie Morales, Vieira revealed how much she loved the job but how she truly wanted more time to spend with her family.

The Hollywood Reporter is citing “sources with direct knowledge of the situation” to report Meredith Vieira, as expected, will be leaving NBC’s dominant TODAY show in June, nearly three months before the end of her contract. Ann Curry will take Vieira’s spot as co-host alongside Matt Lauer, according to the report, and Natalie Morales will replace Curry as newsreader.

Insiders say the moves were made to carefully protect the TODAY brand from a newly invigorated challenge by ABC’s Good Morning America:

According to a story by Richard Johnson in The Daily, the rumored departure of Meredith Vieira from NBC’s top-rated TODAY may come even earlier than anticipated. “The announcement was to come in the first week of May, and the switch in September, when Vieira’s contract expires. But sources say the timetable has accelerated. The announcement could come as soon as today that Vieira will step down as Matt Lauer’s co-anchor in June.”

Potential Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has dominated the airwaves as of late, as he grants interviews to anyone with a camera for him to appear in front of or a telephone for him to call. Much like the four stages of grief, it seems like Trump’s various interviewers are each at various stages along the path of the “Four Stages of a Trump Interview.”

While nobody at NBC has said anything–officially–about the prospect of losing not just one co-host of the country’s top rated network morning show, but two, the impact of such moves is being hotly debated. Quickly on the heels of a report that Meredith Vieira may opt not to extend her contract with TODAY when it ends this summer (she signed a one-year extension eight months ago), comes a report that Matt Lauer may also decide to walk away. “Meredith leaving is no problem at all. Matt leaving is something else,” a news business strategist tells the New York Post‘s Claire Atkinson. ” ‘Today’ is a strong habit, but this means that the audience could taste other things.”

Recent polls shockingly suggest that Donald Trump‘s recent presidential campaign rhetoric is not just part of a campaign promoting his show Celebrity Apprentice (or…Donald Trump), but rather has led him to be considred a serious contender in the GOP primary. He recently sat down with Today co-host Meredith Vieira in a revealing interview in which he was very critical of President Obama’s foreign policy, and also revealed that he had a team in Hawaii investigating Obama’s birth certificate.

NBC has spoken out about rumors that both Meredith Vieira and Matt Lauer are set to leave The Today Show when their respective contracts expire. Vieira’s contract is set to expire this coming September, while Lauer’s runs out in December of 2012.

With the announcement this week that Meredith Vieira, co-host of NBC’s top-rated TODAY might not extend her contract when it expires in the fall, attention will surely focus on TODAY‘s news anchor, Ann Curry. While she hasn’t commented on the reports of Vieira’s interest in sleeping in and escaping the rigor of a network morning show, Curry did write about Vieira’s hiring for the job–and her being passed over–back in 2006. “What some might consider a big professional disappointment—not being named cohost of TODAY when Katie Couric left—has only clarified my mission. I would’ve loved that job, but not getting it made me think, What is it I need to be doing?”

In the article, a cover story in Guideposts magazine, Curry wrote the answer to her question of “what is it I need to be doing” came in the form of humanitarian reporting, which she has done in the years since, traveling around the world and solidifying her stature as one of NBC News’ top correspondents. She shared a story from her reporting with Guideposts:

TV Guide‘s Stephen Battaglio cites an unnamed source saying TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira will leave the top-rated morning show when her contract expires later this year. “(Vieira) is said to be weary of the demanding early morning hours and is ready to move on,” reports Battaglio, who notes that Vieira has spoken about the health of her husband as a factor in any decision to extend her stay at TODAY.

Battaglio reports Vieira has “been in discussions with NBC News executives for several months about extending her deal, which is up in September,” and quotes a source saying “NBC is doing everything they can to convince her to stay.”

Simon Winchester, an author and expert on earthquakes, made a disturbing connection between the epic earthquake and tsunami in Japan and recent devastating quakes in New Zealand and Chile, saying the three events were in three corners of a square in the Pacific some call the “Ring of Fire.” The fourth corner is California and the U.S. Pacific Northwest. Winchester told TODAY‘s Meredith Vieira a massive event along the San Andreas Fault in California is “inevitable.”

Despite the worry from some that the media is wrongly exploiting Charlie Sheen, the fact remains that right now in Sheen’s world there constantly seems to be new developments worth covering and that he is interested in discussing. Now Sheen’s estranged wife, Brooke Mueller, has been granted a restraining order against Sheen and as a result their twin boys have been removed from his home. Sheen addressed the situation live on The Today Show and vowed that he “stayed calm” and is now “focused” on getting his children back.

During this morning’s broadcast of Today, the show’s hosts had to contend with more than just the usual early wake-ups and funny animal stories: a man jumped over a barricade at Rockefeller Plaza, where the show tapes, yelling incoherently. Good morning!

Snowmaggedon? Again? With six serious snowstorms so far this season, morning news shows were left with little left in the clever branding cabinet. Snowpocalypse, check. SnOMG, check. JetBlue Airlines suggested a new one: “Snowprahwinfrey.” Meh.

TODAY put Al Roker, Meredith Vieira and Matt Lauer out in the cold amid a foot or more of snow in Rockefeller Center–and a massive snowpile assembled by plows–to talk about the Snowegoagain. And Roker surely made everyone’s morning by telling us there are two more snowstorms on the way. Delightful. Snowverit.

From the Fantastic Files this morning comes the story of New York’s “Ice Car,” an Audi wagon encased in a tomb of ice after a water main break. On NBC’s TODAY this morning, Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira chatted with the oddly good-spirited owner of the “Ice Car,” Peter Helfer, who was basically still so excited about having found a parking place in New York, that the whole car-frozen-solid thing was just, you know, details.

Glenn Beck appeared with Dr. Keith Ablow on The Today Show as they promoted their self-help book “The 7.” Meredith Vieira first questioned Beck about his goal in writing a book more focused on individuals than on politics, to which Beck replied “we fix our country by fixing ourself.”