TVLine Items: NCIS Casting Scoop, Idol's Randy Jackson Puts Celebs to the Test and More

Things are really happening these days for NCIS’ Abby (played by Pauley Perrette). Not only will the team’s top-notch lab tech have her backstory explored in this Tuesday’s episode, but she’s also getting a visit from an old friend.

Meredith Eaton (Boston Legal) will reprise her NCIS role of Abby’s lab tech bestie, Carol Wilson, in the Nov. 1 episode “Devil’s Triangle,” TVLine has confirmed. (That’s the same ep guesting Mad Men alum Melinda McGraw as one of Gibbs’ exes.)

Eaton first played Carol in the CBS hit’s December 2009 Christmas episode.

NCIS Enlists Mad Men Minx to Play Gibbs’ Ex

Ready for more of today’s TV dish? Well…

•  VH1 has picked up a new reality series being executive-produced by American Idol judge Randy Jackson. Aptitude Test, coming in 2012, will find celebrities retaking their high school career aptitude test, then going undercover for on-the-job training in the line of work that is ostensibly their “rightful calling.” Additionally, the cabler has ordered the reality series House of Consignment, starring Chicago fashion entrepreneur Corri McFadden.

• Susie Abromeit (As the World Turns‘ Anna Kasnoff, and the tennis prodigy from the Gifted Man pilot) will guest-star on CBS’ CSI: Miami as Kayla, a folk-singer turned activist, in this season’s ninth episode.

• Logo’s RuPaul’s Drag Race has tapped some famous faces as guest judges for Season 4, per TV Guide Magazine: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Rose McGowan, Loretta Devine (Grey’s Anatomy), Kelly Osbourne, Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family) and Amber Riley (Glee).

• General Hospital‘s Lexi Ainsworth, who plays Kristina, confirmed via Twitter that she filmed her last episode of the soap on Oct. 6. That puts her final air date on or around mid-November.

• TVGuide.com has a first look at a scene from this week’s Parks and Recreation (NBC, 8:30/7:30c), which features Ron and Leslie taking their respective youth groups — the Pawnee Rangers and the Pawnee Goddesses — on a camping trip. AOL TV, meanwhile, has a sneak peek of NBC’s other Thursday night comedy, The Office, in which viewers will meet Andy’s family (played by Stephen Collins, Dee Wallace and Josh Groban).

Parks and Recreation Scoop: Aziz Ansari Reveals Tom’s Hidden Past with [Spoiler]!

• E! True Hollywood Story will devote an hour to Kate and Pippa Middleton this Wednesday, Oct. 12, at 10/9c, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Which TVLine Items have you talking today?