ABC/KELSEY MCNEAL

Brooke Burke's moment in the spotlight just got upgraded from 15 minutes to three months—the time until Dancing With the Stars' newest batch of celebs takes to the parquet.

ABC announced this morning that the eighth season of the reality-show giant will (cross) kick off March 9 with a two-hour special premiere.

Unlike this past season, where two couples were unceremoniously given the boot during the first week of competition, the upcoming season will allow the would-be eliminated dancers to double their screen time, with each couple performing for two weeks before the first elimination takes place.

Of course, the producers' generosity may be more ratings- than feelings-oriented. In the spring, the show competes—albeit not directly—with the audience-sucking black hole that is American Idol.

As with past seasons, competing celebrities will be announced roughly a month prior to the premiere, though at least one professional has already killed the element of surprise: Two-time champ Julianne Hough announced last month that she would not be returning this spring in order to devote more time to her burgeoning country-music career.

Adam Taylor/FOX

With According to Jim and without Dancing With the Stars, ABC got killed in Tuesday night's ratings race.

Fox and CBS stepped in and cleaned up with a solid House (12.4 million viewers) and a record-sized episode of The Mentalist (18.8 million), respectively, Nielsen estimates said.

House was the night's biggest show among adults 18-49. The Mentalist scored the biggest audience and, for the first time, CBS said, outdrew its lead-in, NCIS (18.5 million).

Fox's Fringe (8.7 million) held steady but got beat in the demo by the surging Mentalist.

On ABC, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town did OK (9 million) but was down about 2 million viewers from last week's A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. It would take too many fingers to count how many viewers the season-premiering According to Jim (5.8 million, for back-to-back episodes) and the late Eli Stone (4.9 million) were down from last week's DWTS finale. 

The CW opted for repeats over dead air. Not that you could tell the difference from the numbers posted by 90210 (1.2 million) and especially Privileged (855,000).

Sometimes it just takes a good ol’ song-and-dance routine to make sense of everything, like
Prop. 8—The Musical, which stars a lot of famous people strutting around onstage.

Jack Black, Neil Patrick Harris, John C. Reilly, Allison Janney, Maya Rudolph and Margaret Cho are just some of the boldfaced folks who make an appearance, but we don’t want to name all of them—that takes away some of the spot-the-stars fun for you.

Created by two of the people behind Hairspray, composer Marc Shaiman and director Adam Shankman, the Funny or Die video highlights, through the power of music, a couple of reasons why the proposition that banned gay marriage is wack. Give it a play and then rave (or rant) in the comments section below!

Michael Rozman/Warner Bros.

Brad Pitt must not have gotten the memo that this week is Britney's and no one else's. He can have next week if he really wants it, but this week is supposed to be all about Circus, revealing birthday dresses and people we haven't heard from in forever. (Ahem, K-Fed, and look Alli Sims! We're still waiting for Sam Lutfi to pop up somewhere...)

Instead, Brad's going around giving out charming quotes to everyone and stealing Britney's momentum. Here's just a sampling of all the fun Brangelina facts we've already learned three days into this week...

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Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

Mary-Kate Olsen's house is in no danger of getting full.

The pint-size mogul's spokesman has shot back at a National Enquirer report claiming the 22-year-old is packing her first child courtesy of artist boyfriend Nate Lowman.

"Mary-Kate is absolutely not pregnant," her rep, Nicole Caruso, told E! News.

The baby-on-board speculation kicked up Monday when the tabloid published a less-than-flattering photo of the diminutive fashion plate and noted that her weight had "shot up"—the post-Thanksgiving horror!—to just over 100 pounds. (Apparently, the dangers of publicly speculating on the weight of someone who publicly battled an eating disorder was of no concern to the Enquiring set.)

The Olsen denial has done nothing to improve the batting average of the tab's Dec. 1 issue. Yesterday, Patrick Swayze personally denied the Enquirer's other major cover story, that his battle with pancreatic cancer had taken a turn for the worse.

The newsstand guilty pleasure should be feeling a little more guilty today.

Mazur/WireImage.com

A photographer won't stop the music until Rihanna and Chris Brown have forked over $1 million.

Luis Santana, a shutterbug for Florida's St. Petersburg Times, is suing the R&B crooners, claiming their bodyguards beat him and confiscated his camera after he caught them leaving the Vintage Ultra Lounge together in early May.

The million-dollar price tag covers the cost of the camera, the photos lost and compensation for his injuries and emotional distress, according to the lawsuit filed yesterday.

After taking a picture of the pair through an open window in their limo, Santana alleges that security for the stars, as well as for the club, knocked him to the ground, took his gear and kicked him repeatedly.

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Steve Granitz/Getty Images

We know Kristen Stewart loves pasty teen vampires. Turns out she also loves rock 'n' roll, so put another dime in the jukebox, baby...

The Twilight star has signed on to play Joan Jett in the biopic The Runaways, about the punk practitioner's 1970s all-girl rock band responsible for "Cherry Bomb," "Queens of Noise" and "Born to Be Bad."

Per the Hollywood Reporter, Stewart will shoot the Jett flick after she takes another turn as Bella in New Moon. The first of potentially three Twilight sequels begins shooting early next year.

Meanwhile, Johnny Depp and Neve Campbell are also hopping on today's Casting Couch...

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Nancy Kaszerman/ZUMAPress.com

Miley's hippie headband. Lindsay's leggings. Katie's box bob. Even Eva dressing like a parrot. It's been a year of fedoras, maxi dresses and plenty more great (and bad) style ideas—and we rank the Top 10 Fashion Fads that caught our eye in 2008.

Don't agree with our picks? Then toss ours and throw in Posh's jagged bob, Anne's platforms or Blake's blazers—make and share your own list! It's all part of E! Online's year-end spectacular Replay '08.

Behold the Top 10 Fashion Fads!

Get all the year's best in Replay '08!