Since these racy photos, and the one below, for New York Magazine didn’t much work in the career jump-start department, Lindsay Lohan will take a page from Britney Spears’ playbook (no, not the baldness or Federline pages), and guest-star on a hit television series. Word is Lohan will appear on ABC’s Ugly Betty for its May 22 season finale as an old classmate of America Ferrera’s Betty Suarez, and perhaps return for as much as an eight-episode stint next season. Presumably not playing a wildly self-destructive type, as with Georgia Rule, last summer’s I Know Who Killed Me and Matthew Bright’s forthcoming The Manson Girls. But who knows, really.

This is an easy call and advisable move, certainly — the Hollywood equivalent of a fullback plunge left — and I have little doubt the structure is benefiting Lohan a great deal. At the same time, is it much more than a temporary tonic? It’s an armchair diagnosis from afar, admittedly, but one of the things that most seemed to get Lohan in trouble, and feed her mania and/or appetite for self-destruction, was stress and a sort of gaping-maw need for extra-sensory stimulation that came from being a front-and-center celebrity. Sadly, with an out-of-rehab photo spread like above, and other news stories and relapse rumors trickling out, there’s little to suggest lasting lifestyle changes, so won’t momentarily removing the pressure of “playing lead” do little except, potentially, help foster a nervousness and/or resentment to get “back on top,” asap? There’s clearly a dangerous addictive gene at work here, and it doesn’t get worked out for 21-year-olds on the basis of “nice” or overseen work environments.