Ox Notes: February 11, 2008

With the strike nearing its official end, the picket lines are over and showrunners have gone back to work. Once the contract is signed, the writers will return to a world in which the pilot development system has been turned on its head.

Even though the new contract puts WGA members in a better position, many long-time writers say the biz ain't what it used to be.

To keep the identities of the Project Runway finalists secret, all five remaining contestants exhibited collections at Fashion Week. Salon has video from the runway show and descriptions of the collections, so only click on the link if you just can't wait for the finale. I'm choosing to wait, at least for another day or two.

People has a screen capture from Dancing with the Stars' Maksim Chmerkovskiy's recent appearance on All My Children.

Some news outlets are reporting that the cast of Dancing with the Stars 6 will be revealed during tonight's episode of Dance War. Nothing on ABC's site confirms that, and it seems more likely that the announcement will be made during the February 18 Dance War finale. That would give the couples exactly four weeks to train, as was the case last season, not to mention giving the pros a week to recover from the Tour, which just ended.

Star Magazine reports that Hairspray's Marissa Jaret Winokur and Will & Grace's Sean Hayes will be two of Season 6's stars.

And a couple of posters at Dance-Forums have posted the names of the professional dancers supposedly confirmed for DwtS 6. I can't verify its accuracy, but here's the list:

Edyta Sliwinska
Anna Trebunskaya
Karina Smirnoff
Julianne Hough
Kym Johnson
Cheryl Burke
Louis van Amstel
Tony Dovolani
Jonathan Roberts
Derek Hough
Mark Ballas
Fabian Sanchez

Fabian is the only new dancer on the list, which is interesting for who's back (Louis) and who's not (Maks and Alec). I'm excited to see if this information proves accurate, and I'll post the date of the announcement as soon as I can find confirmation.