DWTS Standings: Week 7

There was some drama related to Cristian's arm, which appears to have had a ruptured tendon after all. The arm needs corrective surgery, but the doc says it can wait until after Cristian is eliminated. As always seems to happen when there is excessive drama in play (Jenny Garth falling, Marie Osmond fainting, etc.), Cristian was spared despite his lowest judge score.

The obvious bootee was low-scoring Mario, but his trip to the bottom two last week seems to have mobilized his fan base, as he escaped the red lights of elimination for at least another week.

The bottom two included Marissa for the first time, which is a little sad because she turned in her strongest performance of the season. But despite her improvements, she's starting to look weak compared to the ever-fiercer competition.

Marissa wasn't eliminated however. That special honor was reserved for Shannon, whose unmasked bitchery consigned her to fan vote hell. She was one of the few "young pretty girls" to last beyond the first couple of weeks, and it seemed that her all-American charm was working on the audience. But when she broke down into angry hysterics (alongside her equally hysterical partner Derek), her fate was sealed. She apologized for it every chance she got, but it wasn't enough to keep her fans voting.

A bad week for Shannon, a good week for me:

Standings

1st: Matt 1049 (+50)
2nd: Lisa 1048 (-40)
3rd: Dawn 968 (-10)
4th: Kim 904 (-50)
5th: Carl 901 (-20)
6th: Mom 898 (-20)
7th: Paul 806 (-30)

Obviously, the big news in the pool is Lisa yielding first place to me by an incredibly slim margin of 1 point. I edged Lisa out based on my bonus for accurately predicting Shannon's ouster. Lisa had pegged Shannon to last until 2nd place, which didn't hurt her too bad, but did cost her the lead, albeit barely. So, yay! Death to me!

No one else changed their position in the standings. Kim had the worst week of everyone, having predicted Shannon out in 12th place. Her big drop in the standings comes with a silver lining, however-- she's the only player in the pool whose bottom three have all been eliminated. In fact, Kim has her bottom six eliminated, which means that the most she can lose on any future pick is 50 points (as compared to about 100 for the rest of us).

Dawn gained ground on Lisa by dint of losing only 10 points on Shannon's exit. She's still a hefty 80 points off of the lead, but it's a better position than she was in last week.

Kim, Carl, and Mom are all now bunched together in a near-tie for fourth place, while Paul continues to languish near the bottom of the pack.

Don't forget to send me your pick for next week's high-scoring star.

Death to me!