As SAG gets ready to resume contract talks with the producers, Variety examined the lingering fallout from last year’s WGA strike.

Last year’s creative hiatus may claim one more victim, if the guild decides to discipline Jay Leno for writing his Tonight Show monologues during the strike.

Performer Nick Cannon has replaced Jerry Springer as the new host of NBC’s America’s Got Talent.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, TheWB.com has posted love-themed episodes of shows like Friends, Gilmore Girls and Smallville to their website and made them available for viewing online through February 17. Then, from February 18 through March 1, the site will highlight episodes about breakups as a cure for your "Love Hangover."

The Chicago Tribune’s Maureen Ryan reviewed the new version of The Electric Company.

Ahead of tonight’s new episode of Top Chef, here are links to People and TV Guide interviews with ousted cheftestant Jamie.

Dancing with the Stars co-host Samantha Harris and Season 7 competitor Ted McGinley offered their thoughts on the DwtS 8 contestants to OK! Magazine.

DwtS 8 competitor Nancy O’Dell will reveal the identity of her pro partner on today’s edition of Access Hollywood.

On last night’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, Steve-O revealed that he’ll be dancing with Lacey Schwimmer this season. If you’ve never heard Steve-O’s crazy voice before, it’s worth watching the video.

TV Guide asked Dancing with the Stars pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy what he thought about Season 8 contestant Chuck Wicks being paired with his girlfriend, DwtS pro Julianne Hough, for the competition. Maks replied: "I don’t want to start the season with a usual Maks rant, so I’m going to plead the fifth on that pairing!"

Maks’ Season 8 partner, Denise Richards, told People that she’s afraid of "forgetting everything right before going on live."

DwtS 6 champ Kristi Yamaguchi assessed the Season 8 contestants for Us Magazine.

Star Trek fans might want to watch tonight’s episode of Leverage at 10 ET on TNT. It’s directed by Commander Riker and stars Data and Quark. "Shields up. Go to red alert!"

Networks are announcing their plans for the future, including a reality show featuring self-help guru Tony Robbins on NBC. ABC and CBS are working on new reality shows of their own, though CBS seems to be focusing more on new scripted fare for the fall season.

The CW is jumping on the vampire bandwagon with its new scripted show, Vampire Diaries.

TLC announced that it’s dropping Trading Spaces, long after it stopped being the compelling show that put the network on the map.

Reality Blurred has interviews with Survivor: Tocantins contestants Taj Johnson-George, Stephen Fishbach and this season’s likely villain, Sierra Reed.

DwtS 8‘s Steve-O is scheduled to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live tonight, and hopefully the identity of his partner will be revealed. I’m guessing it’s Lacey Schwimmer. Who do you want to see the stuntman paired with?

ABC has announced the celebrity cast of Dancing with the Stars 8:

• Lil’ Kim
• Steve-O
• Nancy O’Dell
• Lawrence Taylor
• Shawn Johnson
• Chuck Wicks
• Gilles Marini
• Denise Richards
• Steve Wozniak
• Belinda Carlisle
• David Alan Grier
• Ty Murray
• Jewel

You can check out the competitors’ official bios at ABC’s DwtS website. Incidentally, earlier on Sunday, a poster at the website Suvivor Sucks posted a rumored cast list that was 100% correct.

Update: ABC’s website confirms that Chuck Wicks will dance with his girlfriend, Julianne Hough (an offer ABC probably made in order to get her back this season). On today’s Good Morning America, Denise Richards met her partner, Maksim Chmerkovskiy.

I learned from an insider that Gilles Marini will dance with Cheryl Burke. And I’ll be surprised if married couple Jewel and Ty Murray aren’t paired with married pros Alec Mazo and Edyta Sliwinska (though MOIB reader Daniela noticed that ABC’s press release only mentions three real life couples, and Alec & Edyta would make four).

Another of the pairings will presumably be revealed on tonight’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, with the rest of the couples announced on Thursday. One of this season’s two new pros is So You Think You Can Dance 4‘s Chelsea Hightower.

My initial impression of the cast is zzzzzzzzz…. Oh, sorry. Must’ve dozed off there. Why couldn’t ABC shelve DwtS for the spring, build up some hype and get some real stars for a fall season?

 Are you as totally underwhelmed by this cast as I am? If not, who are you rooting for?

One of Top Chef New York‘s top contenders was sent home last night. The winning and losing chefs spoke with BravoTV.com about the challenge at Le Bernadin.

Bravo’s website also features Q&As with guest judge Eric Ripert and former judge Gail Simmons (who loved the challenge as much as I did), as well as blog posts by judges Tom Colicchio and Toby Young.

If you live in D.C., this weekend is your chance to see Tiffany "New York" Pollard act in The Vagina Monologues with Survivor: Tocantins contestant Taj Johnson-George.

Reality Blurred interviewed Survivor: Tocantins‘ Brendan Synnott.

MSN has a photo gallery of the best TV office environments.

As you probably suspected, most people eat junk food while watching The Biggest Loser.

Former Dancing with the Stars contestant Vivica A. Fox will host a dating show called The Cougar on TV Land starting on April 15.

The Bob Saget sitcom Surviving Suburbia debuts on April 6 on ABC, following the Monday night edition of Dancing with the Stars.

For the duration of DwtS 8, I propose we nickname Cheryl Burke "Disco Abs" in honor of her new workout video.

Since the cast of Dancing with the Stars 8 will be announced on Sunday night, I’ll have a special DwtS edition of Ox Notes on Monday where we can discuss the new cast. E! has an article about all of the celebrities rumored to be on the show, with the most likely suspects being Denise Richards, Steve-O, Lawrence Taylor and Jewel. Not exactly the A-list (or B-List) group I was hoping for.

Casting for Top Chef 6 begins this weekend. In the meantime, Top Chef New York‘s Jeff McInnis isn’t handling his elimination well. He sounded bitter in interviews with E! and People, where he said: "My opinion about Tom Colicchio’s food is that it’s extremely boring."

In Dancing with the Stars news, OK! reports that Jackass‘s Steve-O is definitely a part of the Season 8 cast.

DwtS pros Mark Ballas and Derek Hough are releasing an album on March 10, the day after Season 8 premieres.

ABC keeps messing with the revamped version of Rob Thomas’s Cupid. The series premiere has been moved back to March 31, and the final episode order has been reduced to seven after network execs reportedly didn’t like a couple of the story outlines submitted by the writers.

Variety’s Phil Gallo writes about the unique arrangement CBS has to integrate music into episodes of NCIS. An upcoming two-disc NCIS soundtrack features 16 previously unreleased tracks.

Variety also features a psychologist’s analysis of House‘s eponymous lead character, Dr. Gregory House.

Ditsy Girl Next Door Kendra is moving out of the Playboy Mansion and getting her own show on E!. If you’re not familiar with the flaky exhibitionist, this safe-for-work video of Kendra extolling the virtues of Olive Garden is an appropriate introduction:

ABC will announce the cast of Dancing with the Stars 8 by revealing the stars’ names one-by-one throughout the course of the network’s Sunday night primetime lineup on February 8. I think I’ll wait until Brothers & Sisters ends and then check out ABC’s DwtS website for the full cast list.

One of the names expected to be on the DwtS 8 cast list is former NFL-er Lawrence Taylor.

Karina Smirnoff recently underwent knee surgery, though the DwtS pro told E! that she’ll be ready to start training with her new partner on February 10.

In other ABC news, producers of The Bachelor flew in special trainers from Seattle to keep Jason Mesnick buff for his shirtless scenes.

More than 95 million people watched Super Bowl XLII.

Reality Blurred interviewed Survivor: Tocantins contestants Joe Dowdle, Jerry Sims, Debra Beebe and Tyson Apostol. Any favorites among these four castaways?

Variety’s Brian Lowry thinks American networks should follow the British model and keep TV shows’ seasons short, especially since most series never make it to the 100 episode mark needed for syndication.

Even shows I really like, such as Battlestar Galactica, have a few filler episodes each season that are so bad they’re almost unwatchable. On the other hand, my favorite series ever, the U.K.’s Peep Show, films just six episodes per season, and each episode is terrific.

I’d rather watch several good shows with shorter seasons each year, instead of a few uneven series with twenty or more episodes each. How about you?

My favorite cheftestant, Fabio, dodged a bullet on last night’s episode of Top Chef New York. Bravo’s website has blog posts from judges Tom Colicchio and Toby Young, as well as Hosea’s explanation of what happened after he kissed Leah.

Donny Osmond told Entertainment Tonight that he’s not going to be on Dancing with the Stars 8 after all. In the interview video, it’s not even clear if he got an offer to appear on the show.

Donny’s sister, Marie, will be on TV this fall with her own talk show, fittingly called Marie.

Variety’s Brian Lowry writes that shows like Mad Men prove that TV has the advantage over movies when it comes to storytelling and character development.

TiVo’s chief executive is encouraging networks to rethink the way they sell advertising space since customers seem to love TiVo’s ad-skipping feature.

Your TiVo will get a lot of use during TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar, which begins on Sunday, February 1. The cable network cleverly organized its schedule of Oscar nominated movies to resemble a university course catalog. Here’s a link to TCM’s full schedule of movies.

This Sunday is also the day of "The Big Game": Puppy Bowl V! The two-hour long program of puppies playing starts on Animal Planet at 3 p.m. ET, rerunning all day until 5 a.m. I plan on watching every minute of the Puppy Bowl, including the Kitty Half-Time Show.

Check out some of the action from Puppy Bowl IV:

Ahead of tonight’s new episode of Lost, TV Guide compiled a list of their favorite Sawyer-generated nicknames. I’m partial to Dr. Giggles for Jack.

Top Chef New York‘s Radhika Desai was interviewed by TV Guide and People.

Occasional Top Chef judge Anthony Bourdain was interviewed by MSN about the current season of No Reservations on the Travel Channel.

ABC and NBC announced new shows in development at the networks, including the celebrity genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are? at NBC.

Twentieth Century Fox is working on an A-Team movie, produced by Ridley Scott. Unless original A-Teamers Dwight Schultz, Dirk Benedict and Mr. T are involved, I don’t care to see it.

Reality Blurred interviewed Survivor: Tocantins contestants Sandy Burgin, Carolina Eastwood and JT Thomas.

The guys from Flight of the Conchords compare being famous to "that nightmare people have when they’re naked at school."

I’m going to spend the rest of the day watching this clip from The Soup over and over again, laughing hysterically:

Yesterday ushered in the Year of the Ox and brought a merciful conclusion to NBC’s disappointing Superstars of Dance. Spoiler alert: the U.S.A. won. Surprise, surprise.

Variety’s Brian Lowry writes that the reality TV genre has gotten stale, citing in particular shows like Superstars of Dance.

The rumor mill is in high gear as we inch closer to the announcement of the cast of Dancing with the Stars 8. Britney’s ex, Kevin Federline, and Cindy McCain say they won’t be participating in the upcoming season, while Donny Osmond is dropping hints that he will.

ABC is adjusting its schedule to create a Thursday night comedy block.

Reality Blurred posted interviews with Survivor: Tocantins contestants Benjamin "Coach" Wade and Sydney Wheeler.

The teams of The Amazing Race 14 were just announced.

Here’s one final performance from Superstars of Dance by the U.S.A. group The Groovaloos:

Only two hours into its new season, I’m abandoning Lost again. I skipped Season 3 entirely, then returned to the fold for Season 4, which was pretty good.

But last night gave me the same bad vibes that caused me to take a break after the abysmal Season 2. I can’t handle another season of slow-as-molasses plot development and dialogue that boils down to this:

"What’s going on?"
"I know the answer, but I won’t tell you."

Greg’s going to stick with it, so he can keep me informed, in case I fall off the wagon again and need to catch up.

What are your thoughts on the premiere? EW has a recap of both of last night’s episodes.

I was much happier with last night’s Restaurant Wars episode of Top Chef: New York. Bravo’s website has blog posts by judges Tom Colicchio, Toby Young and Gail Simmons, as well as Q&As with guest judge Stephen Starr and the ousted cheftestant.

Bravo’s website also has an instructional video on how to make Stefan’s Orange Chocolate Rice Parfait. Yum!

Reality Blurred has a pre-season interview with Survivor: Tocantins contestant Erinn Lobdell.

ER alums George Clooney and Julianna Margulies will both return to the show before the series ends later this spring.

With long running hits like ER leaving the air, NBC is working on an image makeover. Meanwhile, other networks are planning more of the same in order to keep viewers comfortable, such as maintaining a full slate of crime procedurals at CBS.

Speaking of makeovers, a special called Making Over America with Trinny and Susannah, hosts of the British version of What Not to Wear, debuts on TLC on Saturday, January 24 immediately following the 2009 Miss America Pageant.

On Monday, January 26, Bravo will run a marathon of Inside the Actors Studio, featuring some of the comedians who’ve stopped by the show. It all leads up to a new episode with Conan O’Brien at 8 p.m. ET.

Ox Notes returns on Tuesday, January 27. Until then, enjoy this clip from The Soup, starring Star Trek: TNG‘s Geordi La Forge and cast members from Mad Men: