For those of you wondering where the heck this blog entry was Tuesday morning, (yes, all five of you) I apologize. I was indisposed Monday night, doing some very important work for the show over at the House of Blues. By “very important work”, what I mean is shooting about 10 or so still photos and then standing in the back while getting in the way of all the important people. What can I say, that’s how I role. It wasn’t a total loss though, as I got to see Jerrod Saltalamacchia steal Karson’s hat and then complain about the small size of his Karson’s head. So that was fun. Anyway, that is why I wasn’t at home to watch “Dancing With The Stars”, and since I don’t have a DVR in my basement, it is also why I had to go to a friend’s house (I do have a friend, yes) and watch it there on Tuesday afternoon. At that point, I figured I might as well just combine the Monday and Tuesday shows into one entry, so here it is, in all its glory! Well…maybe “glory” isn’t exactly the best word to use…
As always, I will review the contestants in the order of their scores from last week, best to worst, with ties defaulting to alphabetical order by last name. I will also include, once again, my own meaningless rankings at the bottom. Enjoy!
DISCLAIMER: Again, I know nothing about dancing, nor could I ever perform any of the dances I am about to critique. If you came here looking for a serious, insightful breakdown of the dances on the show, I apologize in advance.
Kellie Pickler and Derek Hough –
The rumba that Kellie and Derek showed off here was fine, don’t get me wrong. The dance was done in tribute to Kellie’s husband, Kyle Jacobs, who played the song his wife and her partner danced to live from the front of the dance floor. Some people might think this is a nice touch, but it was a bit much for me. The dance itself was fine, although I thought that many of the movements were a bit too fast for the tempo of the song that was being played, but I suppose that is nitpicking, especially coming from someone who knows nothing about dancing, as I do. I’m just trying to balance out Bruno’s hyperbole, (“It was like watching a sequence of magical images!”) so don’t judge me too harshly.
Judge Score: 25/30
Zendaya Coleman and Valentin Chmerkovskiy –
The costume choice for Zendaya during this dance struck me as a little odd. It made it look like her body was about 80% legs, 20% everything else, which was just kind of bizarre to me. Everything else, including the dance itself, Zendaya’s incredible sense of style, the choreography and coordination between her and Valentin…anything else you could possibly think of, was amazing. According to the rehearsal video with Zendaya and Valentin, the idea was for her to channel her inner Beyoncé, and in the words of judge Carrie Ann Inaba, “Beyoncé better watch her back!” Zendaya is only 16, but I would still have to agree.
Judge Score: 26/30
Jacoby Jones and Karina Smirnoff –
The foxtrot seemed to suit Jacoby better than last week’s rumba. I am of the belief that he does better with faster paced dances that show off his athleticism, and his foxtrot was certainly more lively than the rumba, though I wouldn’t call it fast. Jacoby has been the most graceful male star from day one, and that isn’t likely to change, given the other guys he is up against. Ingo is the only one I would give a chance of coming close to Jacoby. I would say that chance is slim, but it is closer to non-existent.
Judge Score: 24/30
Victor Ortiz and Lindsay Arnold –
Ah, poor Victor Ortiz. The man tries extremely hard, and he certainly has the athletic ability to be a good dancer, but…his attempt at a pasodoble was a very poor showing. The beginning, with Victor up on a raised stage doing boxing moves, was bad. The dancing section, with Victor bumbling about behind an exasperated Lindsay, wasn’t much better. As Bruno said when everything was mercifully over, “You are supposed to dance [the pasadoble], not destroy it.” Good advice, but coming as it did after the dance was done, it was too little, too late.
Judge Score: 18/30
Alexandra Raisman and Mark Ballas –
In accordance with the “best year in your life” theme, Alexandra chose 2012 as the year she wanted to commemorate, which isn’t surprising. No doubt competing in the Olympics tends to overshadow other events in your life. Unfortunately, on a more personal note, Mark Ballas told Alexandra during one of their rehearsals that he would not allow her to have a boyfriend, (jokingly,but still…) as he is very protective of her, which dashed my hopes once and for all. The contemporary routine she and Mark danced was quite good, and I personally hate that style of dance, so of course it was better score-wise than I make it out to be. Some of Alexandra’s magnificent gymnastic skills were incorporated into the dance as well to shake things up a bit, which I definitely liked.
Judge Score: 27/30
Sean Lowe and Peta Murgatroyd –
For Sean, the year he chose to focus on as his best was 2012, which was when he found his “true love” on The Bachelor. In my book, it is still too early to tell how true this love may be, but I’ll indulge Sean just this once and play along with it, at least until he and Catherine are split up in a year or so. As for Sean’s dance, his waltz was slow and stiff as you might expect. The next time he looks fluid and natural dancing on the show will be the first. He also danced over to Catherine (sitting stage-side) at the end of the routine and kissed her, milking that relationship for all it is worth. The judges were less impressed with his affectionate display than he had likely hoped, which made me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
Judge Score: 20/30
Ingo Rademacher and Kym Johnson –
Ingo and Kym’s waltz was unremarkable. Ingo is in that odd zone for me where he has separated himself substantially from all but one of the male competitors. Unfortunately that one male competitor he still lags behind is Jacoby Jones. So yeah…that is a tough spot to be in, as far as I’m concerned. Again, I didn’t see anything in this dance that I haven’t seen done better before by other couples, but it was still good…what can I say about it? I’ll just provide you with a quote from Bruno, who called the dance, “elegant, dashing, and deeply romantic”. You’ll have to take that with a grain of salt though since it came from Bruno, from whose mouth flamboyant phrases tumble with alarming alacrity.
Judge Score: 23/30
Lisa Vanderpump and Gleb Savchenko –
Once again, drama on DWTS! What an unlikely development! I’m sure this wasn’t all planned out in advance, and that it was all completely genuine in every way. What was this drama, you ask? Well, apparently Lisa travels between LA and New York every day or something, and this leads to her not getting any sleep. Because of this lack of sleep, during dance practice one day with Gleb, she fainted straight away onto the floor. Of course, cameras captured all of this, getting an excellent angle on the exact moment of Lisa passing out. Pardon me if I am skeptical as to the veracity of the whole episode. It seems like exactly the sort of thing a reality TV personality like Vanderpump would do. Unsurprisingly, this episode hampered the pair’s dance preparation, and the cha-cha-cha they performed was marginal. Making matters worse, Lisa’s stupid little dog was back. For me, that alone relegates her to last place, just on principle.
Judges Score: 18/30
Andy Dick and Sharna Burgess –
Andy was crying again this week, what a surprise! At least he has branched out, and is now crying about performing a dance for his daughter, not how hard dancing is for him. Still, the crying needs to stop in my opinion. His daughter does deserve some sympathy for having to put up with Andy as a father, but I’m not willing to extend that sympathy to him when he brought all his problems on himself. All that said, the waltz Andy and Sharna danced during this show was by far their best dance of the season. The song they performed to (“Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen) was perfect for their dance. This was the most shocking development of the night for me, because I was expecting Andy to be terrible. As it turns out, he was actually passable. On the downside, Andy has Carrie Ann crying now as well, which just elicits more eye rolling from me.
Judge Score: 21/30
D.L. Hughley and Cheryl Burke –
Now we come, once again, to my least favorite dancer. What can I say at this point? Was the dance slow? Yes. Were there any outstanding moves? No. Does D.L. tell a few bad jokes at the end, a few to the judges and a few during the post dance interview? Of course! Now, I couldn’t tell you why the judges seemed to like this most recent D.L. creation more than the other dances he has done, but they did, and he actually got a semi-decent score this week. Something tells me I will be covering some terrible dancing in the coming weeks, as D.L. continues to stick around, despite his own best efforts to get himself eliminated. I am, needless to say, displeased by this unwelcome development.
Judge Score: 21/30
Intern Paul’s Weekly DWTS Rankings (Not Cumulative, Single Week Only):
1. Zendaya and Valentin (Back to the top for me with an incredibly well choreographed performance)
2. Jacoby and Karina (Better suited dance to Jacoby’s strengths than last week)
3. Alexandra and Mark (Best contemporary routine I’ve seen on the show, still an odd style)
4. Kellie and Derek (Still a great dancer, a few things re: music/speed seemed off)
5. Ingo and Kym (Nothing special, but he did everything well too)
6. Andy and Sharna (The crying really needs to stop, but the dance was actually quite graceful)
7. Sean and Peta (Catherine bit nauseatingly corny to me; stiffness remains)
8. Victor and Lindsay (The boxing thing was laughably bad, the rest was just bad)
9. D.L. and Cheryl (He is going to be here for a while…I’d best learn to deal with it)
10. Lisa and Gleb (fabricated drama + poor dance + stupid dog redux = automatic relegation to last spot)
11. Wynonna and Tony (Eliminated — First real dismissal)
12. Dorothy and Tristan (Eliminated — Withdrawn due to injury)
I would ordinarily sign off at this point, but as I mentioned at the top, I’m combining two nights into one post here. Yay. My excitement knows no bounds. Here we go.
Tuesday Night Results Show -
As I normally provide, here are a few quick notes on Tuesday night’s show:
- The show opened saying that Monday’s dances were all about the best year of each contestant’s life, but Tuesday’s elimination night will be the worst night of one of their lives as well. To which I say: Uh…really? Getting voted off DWTS would qualify as the worst night of one of these people’s lives? Heck, Lisa seemed like she was trying to find an excuse to leave via exhaustion/illness. I’m also pretty sure I’d prefer to be voted off this show than have knee surgery, (Jacoby) deal with a broken home growing up, (Kellie, Victor) or be mixed up in gang warfare (D.L.) in Los Angeles. I guess I just don’t take DWTS as seriously as I should, right ABC?
- The encore dance this week was Alexandra and Mark’s contemporary routine, which, for a contemporary routine, was relatively enjoyable.
- There was an extremely stupid, transparently bogus bit about Bruno’s fake writers that I will not deign to explain in this space. Trust me, you’ll be better off not knowing what the heck I am talking about.
- Pretty cool dance by Derek Hough and Brilynn Rakes, a 17 year old girl who was born with nystagmus and cone dystrophy, conditions that have caused her to be legally blind. She is still a far better dancer than D.L., Victor, or Sean…far better.
- The Andrea Bocelli/J-Lo duet was fine. Mr. Bocelli had his eyes closed through much of the performance, which threw me off for a bit until I figured out he is blind. Very admirable. Another thing that struck me as strange was that Mr. Bocelli’s microphone was a plain black one, while J-Lo’s looked like it was encrusted with diamonds. Not sure what the deal was with the one-upsmanship there.
- At some point during the show, Brad Paisley played a song, but I don’t know how it went, because as soon as it started I changed the channel. I don’t have anything against Mr. Paisley specifically; it is more like the whole country music universe in general that I don’t care for.
- D.L. was telling more bad jokes tonight. It is getting to the point where I’m afraid I’m going to have nightmares of a darkened comedy club with just me and D.L. sitting there as he tells me an endless stream of painfully forced jokes. It’s coming, I can feel it.
- Finally, after much dramatic music and many anxious looks, Lisa and Gleb were voted off the show. I can’t say I didn’t see something like this coming, and Lisa herself didn’t look too upset at hearing the news, which says to me she wanted to quit anyway. As an added bonus, this means her dog is gone too! Now I’ll just have to wait until D.L. is eliminated before I can start possibly enjoying the show! Awesome!
So that is it, two shows in one! I’ll try to never, ever do this again. Spreading the pain out across multiple days helps me more than you can imagine. Thanks for reading/skimming, and check back here next week for more!
