Turn your viewing of the People's Choice Awards on Wednesday (CBS, 9 p.m. PT/ ET) into a multimedia experience. While watching the telecast, share your thoughts with us in our chatroom. It should be a lively show, hosted by Queen Latifah. Meantime, voting is still open in many categories — click here — including the newest one for favorite Web celeb.

Photo: CBS

Uh-oh. Adam Lambert and Kris Allen are clashing again — worse, they're in a diva smackdown with Lady Gaga! Has Hollywood no shame?

Correct answer: No, of course. But this time we can blame the rest of America, the ones who pick the People's Choice Awards. Voting began today online to choose nominees who'll compete for kudos to be bestowed next January and Lambert, Allen and Her Gaga-ness are among the choices for favorite breakout star.

Never mind that "The Hurt Locker" is the most critically acclaimed film of the year, scoring 94 at Metacritic. It's not listed among the choices as fave flick. Instead, options to click on include "Fast & Furious," "GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra" and, even though viewers haven't seen it yet, "Twilight: New Moon." However, there is a place on these Web pages to write in your choices if it's not listed and you're not lazy.

Photo credit: Christopher Polk / Getty Images

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• Lou Lumenick of the New York Post makes merry with today's live blogging by the Sisters of Charity on the subject of "Doubt." As Lou explains, he has doubt as to whether to forgive the filmmakers for using a quote cobbled together from a fragment of his review and a sentence by gossip columnist Cindy Adams and attributed to the New York Post to promote the picture. While the ads now use just his words and name him, he says, "as a lapsed Catholic I'm not sure whether I should forgive them absent a formal apology and (Scott) Rudin's attitude. What do you think, sisters?" NEW YORK POST

• Two current BAFTA nominees — Michael Fassbender ("Hunger") and Rebecca Hall ("Frost/Nixon"; "Vicky Cristina Barcelona") — are among the contenders for the Rising Star prize at next month's kudos. The other three nominees are Michael Cera ("Nick & Nora's Infinite Playlist"), Noel Clarke ("Adulthood"), and Toby Kebbell ("RockNRolla"). Among those on the jury selecting the nominees was the award's first recipient, James McAvoy, who picked up the prize in 2006. A public vote decides the winner. BAFTA

• Though the People's Choice Awards have declined in value, they certainly earned their cost back for CBS with a respectable performance in the ratings Wednesday night. The two-hour kudocast had 9.32 million viewers watching "The Dark Knight" romp to victory and was first with adults 18 to 49 (2.9/8) and second in adults 25 to 54 (3.6/8) and total households (6.0/10). That is a big bounce back from last year's low ratings for a strikebound edition which resorted to taped deliveries of awards and drew only 5.96 million viewers. However, it is still off the mark from two years ago when 11.33 million viewers tuned in, drawing a 3.5/9 in the adult 18-49 demo. FUTON CRITIC

• Variety reports on the newfound respectability for action films by examining the award prospects for "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man." Among those interviewed on the subject is Chicago Tribune film critic Michael Phillips who thinks, "People talk a lot about the prejudice against comedies when it comes to the Oscars, but I think there is just as substantial a prejudice against the action genre. People sort of look at comedy and action as meat and potato stuff, which is why performances in both genres often get overlooked." According to Phillips, "An action film that does get nods has a certain element of 'class.' " VARIETY

Photo: IFC Films

Although the People's Choice Awards commemorate its 35th anniversary this January, there is little to celebrate about the tarnishing of these once-important kudos. Adding the new category of Favorite Scene-Stealing Guest Star may bring boffo ratings — as it did when nominee Britney Spears guested on "How I Met Your Mother" — but it won't earn these prizes any new respect. She competes against Luke Perry and Robin Williams, both nominated for dropping by "Law & Order: SVU." See the full list of People's Choice nominees in all categories and vote for the winners HERE.

You'll notice that there's also a new, sensational race for TV Drama Diva, which is missing Emmy winner Glenn Close ("Damages"). As Bob Sassone writes about the TV contenders over on TV Squad, "The list of nominees is the very definition of unexciting" citing the exclusion of such buzzed-about shows as Emmy champ "Mad Men" and "Dexter" for the likes of "CSI."

And the movie contenders are not much better. While "The Dark Knight" competes in several races, as do "The Secret Life of Bees", "Iron Man," and "Mamma Mia!" there is little else in the way of serious awards fare. That shift in focus for these kudos began five years ago. Until 2004, winners were determined by a Gallup Poll of everyday Americans. Not surprisingly, over those first three decades of the PCAs, the people often went with populist choices like "E.T." for best picture. However, many Oscarologists consider that film's loss to "Gandhi" at the 1982 awardsfest as one of the academy's biggest goofs.

And there were years when the People's Choice for a best picture prize (they have two or three in some years, just one in others) coincided with those of Oscar voters. Indeed, "The Sting" was picked as the very first People's Choice weeks before its upset win at the 1974 Oscars. Since then, the two kudos lined up for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1976); "Rain Man" (1988); "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991); "Forrest Gump" (1994); and "Titanic" (1997). And when they disagreed, it was over equally worthy movies — like "Star Wars" versus "Annie Hall" in 1977 — and the alternative points of view were refreshing.

In 2005, PCA voting was changed to a much less expensive — and far less scientific — means of opinion-gathering. An Internet research company taps a sample number of pop culture fans to choose the nominees, then voting is thrown open to all Internet users who wish to register their opinions online at pcavote.com. Under this new and unimproved system, the first winner for best picture was "Fahrenheit 9/11." While it was arguably a worthy contender, such a polarizing pic never would've won using the old Gallup Poll method. Which raises the question: Was it really the people's choice? No. It was the choice of the people who dominate cyberspace: young men, who, biologically speaking, have a hormonal need to rebel against authority.