the restaurant

Dancing With the Stars is a show that makes no sense to me. I understand the appeal of it; I'm usually very interested in any program that involves celebrities doing ridiculous things on national television and I know that people love bright shiny costumes, but it still somehow manages to hold no interest for me whatsoever.

With that said, I know that the announcement of each season's DWTS cast is heavily anticipated and rumored for months before the actual announcement. We heard that Dan Marino may be a contestant; a claim that was soon denied. 82-year-old Cloris Leachman was another name floated, as was Magnum, P.I. himself, Tom Selleck. Kim Kardashian and Kathy Griffin were also said to have been approached.

As with most rumors, some of these turned out to be false, but others had some truth to them. Follow me after the jump for the official (and completely insane) cast of Dancing With the Stars' seventh season, along with some twists the producers have cooked up for this go-around.

There's more reality being served up by NBC: a food-based competition show in which couples vie to open a restaurant. British chef Marco Pierre White will be the judge. NBC has greenlit The Chopping Block for next season, calling it a sort of Top Chef meets Hell's Kitchen. Actually, it sounds like a twin for BBC America's Last Restaurant Standing. That one has nine couples competing for one restaurant with Chef Raymond Blanc as the judge. The NBC incarnation will have eight couples, and unlike Chef Blanc who has earned two Michelin stars for his restaurants, Chef White has three.

Martha Executive Producer Rob Dauber has been fired from the show after several weeks of being at odds with the domestic diva.

The most interesting part of this story isn't that Dauber was fired, but that Mark Burnett is a producer of the show. I knew that he was the producer of Martha's version of The Apprentice, but I didn't know he was also doing her daily syndicated show. And Dauber? He worked with Burnett on The Restaurant, NBC's reality show for a couple of years ago. That was a show I really wanted to like, because I worked in the restaurant biz for many years, but it just got to be tedious and cringeworthy after a handful of episodes.

[via TV Tattle]

Some people just don't give up. No matter how poorly they do, they try again. And, no matter how poorly they do after that, they try again. Some would say that it is a sign of someone who is not willing to give up. Others would say that the person was just stupid.

I'm not too sure which description I would choose for chef Rocco DiSpirito. If you remember, DiSpirito was the star of NBC's The Restaurant, a reality show about running his own restaurant. There were hopes for the show when it began airing in 2003; however, reviews for the show were terrible and it ended its run in the summer of 2004. We thought that would be the last we saw of Rocco on eposodic television.

Apparently, that's not the case. According to Sarah Gim (from our sister site Slashfood), DiSpirito is currently filming a pilot for another reality series simply titled Rocco. In the show, the chef will act as a culinary therapist, solving people's problems through the use of food. Um, don't professionals usually say that solving problems with food is actually one of the worst things you can do?

Is Rocco determined, or just someone who doesn't get it? We'll see if this pilot turns into a series.