Ox Notes: August 1, 2008

A spokesperson for Dan Quayle told TV Guide that the former VP will not be competing in Dancing with the Stars 7. Neither will comedian Kathy Griffin, apparently.

Zap2It has a recap of last night's So You Think You Can Dance results show. TV Guide posted video of an interview with last week's eliminated dancers, Comfort and Will.

Us magazine posted some thoughts on this week's SYTYCD performance show from Mary Murphy and Dan Karaty, who doesn't seem too impressed by any this season's Top 6 dancers.

Reality Blurred wrote about Project Runway 5's impressive ratings, in spite of cast members that are "less engaging and more annoying" than in previous seasons. Zap2It's TV Gal agrees with that sentiment, and so do I -- or should I say, so does Kathy.

In other Bravo reality show news, Top Chef 2's curly-haired, diabetic hunk, Sam Talbot, got engaged over the weekend.

Executive producer Bertram Van Munster dropped some hints about the upcoming season of The Amazing Race, which premieres on September 28.

With America in the middle of a housing crisis, Property Ladder host Kirsten Kemp is taking a break from teaching amateurs how to flip houses for profit, and will now host a new show on TLC aimed to help struggling home owners make small improvements to boost their home's value. Hope For Your Home premieres August 9 at 8:30 p.m. ET.

Also new to TLC is Battleground Earth (not to be confused with the John Travolta flick Battlefield Earth), which pits rapper Ludacris against rocker Tommy Lee in a battle to promote eco-awareness. The Motley Crue drummer talked with TV Guide about how the show, which premieres on TLC on August 7 at 8 p.m. ET, has turned him into a typical dad, yelling at his kids to turn off the lights when they leave the room.

The producers of Wizard's First Rule have changed the name of the series to the totally generic Legend of the Seeker, which sounds more like a subtitle than a series title. Perhaps they just pulled a couple of words out of a hat and plugged them into the J.R.R. Tolkien Fantasy Epic Name Generator™: "_____ of the _____."

My disappointment is mitigated somewhat by their casting of Craig Parker, who played Haldir in the Lord of the Rings movies, as a villain in the series. But, still, they couldn't come up with anything better than Legend of the Seeker?