Ox Notes: January 4, 2008

The WGA is trying to put the breaks on Jay Leno's self-written monologues, claiming that he's violating guild rules by writing anything for NBC. This should make things interesting on Monday when The Daily Show and The Colbert Report return with new episodes, as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are in the same position as Leno.

I'm glad I didn't bother to watch last night's debut of The Apprentice 7, as every review of the show seems to be negative. Reality Blurred described the celebrity edition "a half-assed knock-off of itself."

If you've every dreamed of dancing with Cameron Mathison, here's your chance: the soap star is auctioning off a private dance lesson with himself and his Dancing with the Stars pro partner, Edyta Sliwinska, for charity.

To fuel excitement for one of the few new shows debuting this winter, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Fox is posting the show's pilot episode on Yahoo! tonight for a 24-hour special preview.

People has interviews with a few recent reality show cast-offs: Project Runway's flaky Elisa and The Amazing Race's goth couple, Kynt & Vyxsin.

The staff at TV Guide is pumped for Sunday night's premiere of The Wire. TV Guide's website features an interview with Clarke Peters, who plays Det. Lester Freamon, as well as a post in their new Strike Survival Guide titled "The Wire: Why You Should Tap into It."

For a lengthier read, The Believer posted an interview with Wire creator David Simon conducted by author Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy). Simon describes The Wire as "a Greek tragedy in which the postmodern institutions are the Olympian forces. It’s the police department, or the drug economy, or the political structures, or the school administration, or the macroeconomic forces that are throwing the lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no decent reason."