The judges still have yet to flash any "10" paddles this season, but three couples are on the brink of earning them. And it was another bad week for guys named Steve.

Gilles Marini & Cheryl Burke — 27

Shawn Johnson & Mark Ballas — 27

Melissa Rycroft & Tony Dovolani — 27

Lil’ Kim & Derek Hough — 25

David Allen Grier & Kym Johnson — 24

Chuck Wicks & Julianne Hough — 23

Ty Murray & Chelsie Hightower — 23

Lawrence Taylor & Edyta Sliwinska — 20

Holly Madison & Dmitry Chaplin — 17

Denise Richards & Maksim Chmerkovskiy — 16

Steve-O & Lacey Schwimmer — 15

Steve Wozniak & Karina Smirnoff — 10

Injuries might make this the final week for one of the Steves on Dancing with the Stars 8, only not for the Steve you might think. Steve-O has a hematoma in his back but plans to dance in tonight’s Performance Show. Steve Wozniak, however, may not be able to after he pulled a hamstring on Friday.

On tonight’s DwtS Performance Show, Gilles Marini & Cheryl Burke will dance the Samba, while Ty Murray & Chelsie Hightower, Shawn Johnson & Mark Ballas and Melissa Rycroft & Tony Dovolani will dance the Foxtrot.

Nancy O’Dell is recovering after surgery to repair her own DwtS-induced injury, and contestants Lawrence Taylor, Holly Madison, Denise Richards, Shawn Johnson and Julianne Hough all confessed their own DwtS-related woes.

An article at Yahoo! revealed that the celebrities who participate in Dancing with the Stars are paid a base salary of $200,000 for the entire season. They only earn bonuses for finishing in first, second or third place. That means that Belinda Carlisle, the first contestant booted this season, gets paid as much as the contestant that finishes the season in fourth place.

In other reality show news, The Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan blogged about last night’s episode and posted a video diary about the stylish boots favored by Russian women.

CBS’s TAR website also features a video showing the drama at Elimination Station as the younger, fitter teams socially isolate Linda & Steve. It’s a whole other show within the show.

I’m delighted to start this Ox Notes with a link to a thought-provoking post my husband, Greg, wrote for MOIB’s sister blog, Elf Needs Food (run by Greg and his brother). Greg’s article tackles TV’s growing trend of showing past victimization as a substitute for character development. In its early seasons, Lost was a prime example of this kind of lazy storytelling (think John Locke and his untrustworthy father).

Lately, Battlestar Galactica has fallen into the same pattern. Greg’s post addresses how BSG‘s retroactive continuity has ruined one of its most popular characters. Given that the series finale airs on Friday night, it’s frustrating that the writers have spent so much time in recent episodes dwelling on the past, instead of showing the characters dealing with their dire present-day problems.

In other TV news, there’s no Survivor: Tocantins tonight, due to college basketball. People has an interview with the latest castaway voted out, Spencer.

I’m just now catching up on all of the videos CBS posts at The Amazing Race 14‘s website, including host Phil Keoghan’s video diary and the Elimination Station videos shot at the beautiful lodge in Thailand where the eliminated teams are sequestered.

NBC announced that it’s scrapped most of its summer reality TV lineup.

Project Runway‘s Kenley Collins was arrested for throwing a cat at her fiance.

Anthony Bourdain recently critiqued a slew of TV food shows.

In Dancing with the Stars news, Steve Wozniak apologized for questioning the integrity of the DwtS voting system.

Chuck Wicks & Julianne Hough recorded an interview with TV Guide, and the camera work makes it clear which one of the pair TV Guide thinks is the real star (hint: it’s not Chuck).

Melissa Rycroft told Us Magazine that she and Tony Dovolani will dance the Foxtrot next week.

People has a report on What You Didn’t See backstage at Tuesday night’s DwtS Results Show. The Results Show was watched by a record low audience of only 12.4 million, down from 21.1 million viewers the night before. Maybe going head-to-head with American Idol wasn’t such a great idea.

Why, oh why, must Sony tamper with my childhood memories by releasing a horrible-looking animated movie version of the wonderful book, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs"?

Backstage after last night’s Dancing with the Stars 8 Results Show, ousted couple Belinda Carlisle & Jonathan Roberts and the rest of the cast recorded video interviews with ET and The Insider and spoke to E! and OK!.

New this season, DwtS judge Carrie Ann Inaba is blogging after every Results Show for EW.com. She clarified the rules for the dance-off and offered her thoughts on the performances thus far.

People wants to know what you thought of the dance-off.

I was excited to discover that the Yahoo! Buzz Session featuring Diane Mizota and Joey Lawrence is back after taking Season 7 off. Check out what the snarky duo thought of Monday night’s performances.

Nancy O’Dell offered her thoughts on Monday’s dances to TV Guide, and People posted a backstage report on What You Didn’t See.

Looking ahead to next week on Dancing with the Stars, Gilles Marini told E! he’s anxious to start rehearsing his Samba. And Holly Madison enthused to Us, "I’m obsessed with these freakin’ costumes! I don’t care about the Mirror Ball. I don’t give an eff about winning. I just want to wear as many costumes as I can!"

President Obama’s televised speech next Tuesday night won’t interrupt the Dancing with the Stars Results Show.

DwtS pros Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Karina Smirnoff chatted with ET about their sexy TV Guide photo shoot.

In TV news that’s not about Dancing with the Stars (there is such a thing?), FOX cancelled Hole in the Wall for good, with four hours of the lame game show left unaired.

One of my favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes, Zombie Nightmare starring Adam West, is coming to DVD on July 7. I’ve always loved this line about the lumbering title zombie: "John Goodman on Hume Cronyn’s back could outrun this guy." (If you’re too young to get the references, go here for an explanation).

To bring things full circle, here’s a clip of Belinda Carlisle’s exit interview last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Is it just me, or does Belinda sound a little dismissive when she says her picks to win DwtS 8 are Gilles or "the girl from The Bachelor"?

One Steve couldn’t even make it to the Performance Show, and the other received the lowest scores. Was there any way one of them wouldn’t go home this week?

Apparently so.

Steve-O, who was injured at dress rehearsal for the Performance Show, garnered enough audience votes to be safe from this week’s dance-off.

Steve Wozniak wasn’t so lucky. He and Karina landed in the bottom two, along with Belinda and Jonathan. Both couples danced, and each received 17 points from the judges.

Going into tonight, I thought the judges — rather than scoring — would be deciding which bottomfeeding contestant gets sent home, as happens on So You Think You Can Dance. Instead, the new scores just got added into the mix somehow and recombined with the audience votes.

Personally, I like the SYTYCD method. It’s simple, and it doesn’t give the judges an easy way out (like tonight, when they scored the couples as even).

In the end, Belinda couldn’t muster enough audience support over the show’s first two weeks, and she was sent home.

OK! reports that injured Dancing with the Stars 8 contestant Steve-O is resting at home and expects to continue in the competition. After last night’s Performance Show, two-time champ Cheryl Burke told OK! that the couples are pushing themselves too hard this season. She told Access Hollywood previously that pairs should rehearse no more than four hours each day.

Access Hollywood stirred up trouble backstage, asking the professional dancers about an interview Maksim Chmerkovskiy did with TV Guide in which he said that Melissa Rycroft has an "unfair" advantage over the other contestants because of her dance background.

Us Magazine caught up with Melissa after the show, while E! chatted with Denise Richards. The Insider and ET interviewed all of the contestants backstage.

Catching up on older DwtS news, here are links to interviews with Lil’ Kim & Derek Hough, Gilles Marini, Steve Wozniak, Shawn Johnson and Ty Murray & Chelsie Hightower.

Another week, another traumatic Dancing with the Stars 8 injury. In the list below, the first score represents the points earned for this week’s dance. The second line is the total combined scores for this week and last week.

Gilles Marini & Cheryl Burke — 27
Combined Total = 51/60

Melissa Rycroft & Tony Dovolani — 26
Combined Total = 49/60

Shawn Johnson & Mark Ballas — 24
Combined Total = 47/60

Lil’ Kim & Derek Hough — 23
Combined Total = 44/60

Chuck Wicks & Julianne Hough — 20
Combined Total = 40/60

Denise Richards & Maksim Chmerkovskiy — 21
Combined Total = 39/60

Lawrence Taylor & Edyta Sliwinska — 20
Combined Total = 36/60

Holly Madison & Dmitry Chaplin — 18
Combined Total = 36/60

David Alan Grier & Kym Johnson — 17
Combined Total = 36/60

Belinda Carlisle & Jonathan Roberts — 18
Combined Total = 35/60

Ty Murray & Chelsie Hightower — 20
Combined Total = 34/60

Steve-O & Lacey Schwimmer — 14
Combined Total = 31/60

Steve Wozniak & Karina Smirnoff — 17
Combined Total = 30/60

Steve-O injured his back during dress rehearsal when he fell on his mic pack and wasn’t able to perform live. Per the DwtS rules, a recording of his dress rehearsal performance was shown, and the judges awarded their points based on that performance.

So, what’s going to happen on Tuesday night’s Results Show? Will Steve-O have to drop out? Will this season’s new dance-off between the lowest scoring couples proceed as planned?

I wasn’t planning on posting Ox Notes today, but MOIB reader Amy alerted me to three new injuries to Dancing with the Stars 8 cast members. The three wounded stars say they plan to compete on Monday night, but their injuries sound pretty serious.

Gilles Marini, who was already hampered by tendinitis in his groin and shoulder, suffered a separated shoulder. It’s unclear if the new injury is to the same shoulder affected by tendinitis.

Steve Wozniak was spotted leaving rehearsal with his foot in a removable cast, evidently to protect a fractured bone in his foot.

Steve-O is pained by pinched nerves in his back which are causing muscle spasms. The Jackass star says, "I’m still rehearsing every day, but walking through my salsa routine rather than practicing the physical stunts and tricks that are incorporated into it."

I wouldn’t be surprised to see one or more of these guys bow out of the competition under doctors’ orders. It’s too early in the season for any of them to try any Cristian de la Fuente-like heroics and risk long term injury.

In other DwtS 8 news, Maksim Chmerkovskiy told People that Denise Richards brings him coffee and homemade sandwiches every morning when she comes to rehearsal.

The New York Times and EW.com have very different takes on the outcome of last night’s Jim Cramer vs. Jon Stewart showdown on The Daily Show.

Finally, Jeff Probst posted his thoughts on last night’s Survivor: Tocantins in his EW.com blog. While Probst’s beloved Coach didn’t give him much material to work with in last night’s episode, Probst jokingly referred to Coach’s faulty weather-predicting skills as "shaman-like."

I caught the premiere of The Chopping Block last night, and I was disappointed. Greg was more blunt in his assessment: "That sucked." The show’s premise is good, but it’s edited horribly, making it hard to get a sense of what was really happening. Of the dozen or so dishes made for the final challenge, only four were discussed — not cool on a food competition show. Variety has a similarly dismal take on The Chopping Block.

Also at Variety, Brian Lowry noticed that commercials for personal injury lawyers, hard liquor and other kinds of ads you’d normally only see during the day or late at night are gradually creeping into primetime television.

In Dancing with the Stars 8 news, The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Denise Richards has already earned a bad reputation on set. ET caught up with Holly Madison & Dmitry Chaplin in rehearsal.

Heidi Klum sounds pessimistic about the chances of Project Runway 6 making it to the air any time soon. PR mentor Tim Gunn told OK! that he has a crush on Anderson Cooper, but who doesn’t?

Heidi will appear on CBS’s April Fools Day celebrity prank show, I Get That a Lot, where she’ll work in a pizza shop, trying to convince patrons that she’s not Heidi Klum.

TCM announced Alec Baldwin as the new co-host of the network’s Saturday night movie showcase, The Essentials.

Iron Chef Cat Cora and her lesbian partner are both pregnant — possibly with each other’s children. Tell your kids to make their biology teachers squirm by bringing this scenario up in class.

George Clooney makes his not-so-secret return to ER tonight on NBC at 10 ET, along with Julianna Marguiles, Eriq La Salle and special guest Susan Sarandon.

Also tonight, Jon Stewart takes on Jim Cramer in "Cramer vs. Not Cramer: Basic Cable Personality Clash Skirmish ’09" on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show at 11 ET. If you haven’t been following the cross network feud between Stewart and Cramer, get caught up with this clip from The Daily Show:

.cc_box a:hover .cc_home{background:url(‘http://www.comedycentral.com/comedycentral/video/assets/syndicated-logo-over.png’) !important;}.cc_links a{color:#b9b9b9;text-decoration:none;}.cc_show a{color:#707070;text-decoration:none;}.cc_title a{color:#868686;text-decoration:none;}.cc_links a:hover{color:#67bee2;text-decoration:underline;}

There’s still plenty of Dancing with the Stars news to catch up on two days after the Season 8 premiere. Access Hollywood and ET recorded video interviews backstage with the contestants after their debut. People has an article about What You Didn’t See behind the scenes at the premiere.

Samantha Harris recorded a video blog for The Insider just before the season premiere, which includes a shot of the tiny piano bench inside the confessional room where the contestants sit as they rant about the judges’ scores.

Access Hollywood has more DwtS video interviews with Melissa Rycroft and Jewel, who commiserated with Nancy O’Dell about having to leave the competition due to injury. Nancy O’Dell will be sharing her thoughts on the performances with TV Guide after each episode.

ET caught up with Gilles Marini & Cheryl Burke and Chuck Wicks & Julianne Hough the morning after the premiere. Julianne told Us that Chuck is still working on trying to smile while he dances.

The cast of E!’s Girls Next Door shared their thoughts on castmate Holly Madison’s opening night performance. Hugh Hefner and Kendra Wilkinson spoke to People about Holly’s dancing, and Bridget Marquardt talked to Us.

Engaged pro dancers Karina Smirnoff and Maksim Chmerkovskiy talked about DwtS and their wedding preparations with ET. I like Karina’s plan: "I want a small wedding but the biggest honeymoon in history."

Fox Sports has a photo gallery of all of the athletes and sports figures who’ve appeared on Dancing with the Stars.

New culinary competition The Chopping Block premieres on NBC tonight at 8 ET. The show stars eccentric celebrity chef Marco Pierre White, who conducted a phone interview with several media outlets recently. The Futon Critic and Zap2It feature some of White’s quotes in their articles about the show.

I’m curious to watch The Chopping Block if only to see Chef White. Here’s Mario Batali’s account of his brief time working under White in London: