Dancing With the Stars: Week 7

PERFORMANCE NIGHT:
Every week, this show manages to pull out some sort of new twist to make it a little different from all the other episodes of the season. This week, they introduce the concept of the "team dance."

In addition to their normal routine, each couple partnered up with two other couples to put on a six-person team dance. They've done group dances before, but they always seemed like filler, because they didn't count for anything.

But in this case, the team dance earned a score that was weighted as heavily as the individual dance scores. This had a huge impact on the scoring, as we'll see in a minute.

Hey, did you know this show was LIIIIIIVE!?!?!

WARREN:
Warren and his partner Kym kicked off the night with a foxtrot. The glow has definitely faded from Warren over the last few weeks. Early in the competition, I was amazed every time he took the floor, but lately, he looks a little uncomfortable, like he's concentrating too hard or something. This week, he scored only a 21 out of 20, which is really not good enough at this stage in the competition.


SUSAN:
Susan and her partner Tony performed the Paso Doble. Now that Cloris is out of the competition, I think it's fair to say that Susan is officially the worst dancer remaining. Some weeks are better than others, but it's always painfully obvious that she's frantically trying to remember what to do next. That being said, this was one of her better dances, which I think is partly attributable to the fact that the Paso Doble allows her to be more passive while her partner throws her around the floor. They scored 24 out of 30.

MAURICE:
Maurice and his partner Cheryl were up next, performing a Cha Cha Cha. Maurice is another one who has to worry now that Cloris is out of the picture, but he did well this week with the up-tempo type of music that seems to get those fleet feet of his going. The judges gave him 25 out of 30.



CODY:
Cody and his new partner Edyta performed the Viennese Waltz. This was the first time that the two have worked together, since Julianne's appendix forced her to recuse herself for the week (and maybe longer). Cody and Edyta are not a match made in heaven. After weeks of getting comfortable with Julianne, Cody seemed exactly as tentative as you would expect with the older and less-fluent Edyta. The judges pounced on the weakness, and gave him only a 22 out of 30.



LANCE:
Lance was performing the Rumba with his partner Lacey. They went very modern/new age, incorporating a park bench and some impressionism into the routine. Also, they were barefoot, which I don't believe has ever been done before. Traditionalist judge Len really hated this, and scored them harshly compared to the other two. I'm with Len on this one-- they keep telling Lacey to forget all the flashy tricks, and she keeps on ignoring them on the theory that the audience loves it. I'm not sure they have any massive voter support based on their flashiness, though. Len gave them a 7, while Bruno and Carrie Ann scored 9s, for a total of 25 out of 30.

BROOKE:
Brooke and her partner Derek performed a Foxtrot. There was no mention of her foot injury, so I guess that's not a story line anymore. I liked the dance, which was graceful and elegant without being slow or boring. There were a couple of bits that were really well-synchronized, and that's always impressive to see. Still, I thought it was just about par for the course for Brooke, while the judges ate it up like chocolate ice cream. After some glowing comments and rave reviews, they backed up their praise with a perfect 30 out of 30.

TEAM DANCES:

You could tell right off the bat that the teams were mismatched in terms of talent. Susan is the weakest dancer, and she should have been put on the same team as Brooke, the strongest dancer. Instead, they went with Susan, the middling Cody, and the talented-but-inconsistent Lance performing the Cha Cha on one side. This left presumptive winner Brooke, Warren, and Maurice on the other side performing the Paso Doble.

Team Cha Cha had several problems. Susan was not only the worst dancer, but she was also performing alongside two professional women, and so she looked that much worse. The entire dance looked chaotic at times, with lack of synchronization being the biggest single problem. Carrie Ann called it brutal to watch, and the judges gave it an insulting 20.


Team Paso Doble had everything going for them. The dance itself was strong and peppy, their costumes were better, and they had Brooke matching up with their two females, which was not a problem for Brooke at all. Not only that, but Warren made an awesome centerpiece for the other dancers to dance around. Their moves were much more precise and organized, and the judges were appropriately impressed, giving them a whopping 29 out of 30 points. Wow! I thought they were clearly better, but I wouldn't have scored them that highly.



Since there was such a discrepancy between the scoring in the team dances, everyone on team Paso team wound up in the top 3, while everyone in team Cha Cha was in the bottom 3. If they do that team thing again, I think we're going to see the competitors focus on it a little more.

Here's what the leaderboard looked like after performance night:

Brooke: 30 (+4 = most improved) +29 = 59
Maurice: 25 (+4 = most improved) +29 = 53
Warren: 21 (-4 = biggest slide) +29 = 50
Lance: 25 (-2 = most improved) +20 = 45
Susan: 24 (+2) +20 = 44
Cody: 22 (-1) +20 = 42


Elimination Night

Lionel Richie dropped in to do some singing, but overall, the musical numbers were pretty lackluster. They brought in the surprisingly funny trio of Kenny Mayne, Jerry Rice, and head judge Len Goodman to provide a sports-like commentary/analysis of the six remaining dancers. Kenny Mayne is really funny, Len is a terrific straight man, and Jerry Rice at least stays out of the way, for the most part.

The encore performance was, predictably, the team Paso Doble, which went a little less smoothly than the first time around.



Once again, they didn't reveal a bottom two, but it looks like Cody had enough votes to keep him in the game, because Susan was the eventual bootee. In any season that didn't include 82 year old Cloris, I think everyone would have been bowled over by how well 62 year old Susan did. But she looks so youthful that it's easy to forget that she's in a whole different age range than her remaining competitors, and so she didn't get proper credit for her age-defying dances.

As a soap opera queen, she was also the busiest of perhaps all of this season's competitors. She seemed to be constantly traveling between DWTS and her day job, which may have accounted for the fact that she didn't always seem to be as well-rehearsed as the other dancers.

So, we can see that the deck was stacked against Susan in a way that made her achievement seem very impressive. For all that, it was still a good elimination-- it was definitely her time to go.

Next week, they tell us that the routines will include some solo dancing by the stars. That should be fun. Maurice and Cody are going to have to work very hard to weasel their way into the top three.

The Standings

Since I didn't know how the team scoring was going to go down, the TS/BS was determined wholly by the individual dance score. This meant that Brooke was TS with her 30 points, and Warren was the surprising low scorer with 21. Pool members got 13 points for each one of these two events they predicted, which meant that Carl and Mike picked up a big 26 points apiece.

Susan's ouster was probably the most accurately predicted by the pool, with the possible exception of Jeffrey. I was the only one who lost more than 20 points-- every single person was within two places on their prediction. That, combined with all of the bonus points flying around, meant that many people actually gained points.

The end result was that I lost first place to those pesky experts, and dropped into third place behind Mike. Paul aced Rick out of 8th place, so Rick is now officially at the bottom of the totem pole. Balls to you, Rick!


1st: Experts 925 (+50 +0)
2nd: Mike 922 (-10 +26)
3rd: Matt 913 (-30 +13)
4th: Carl 863 (-20 +26)
5th: Kim 837 (-20 +0)
6th: Dawn 822 (-10 +0)
7th: Lisa 806 (-10 +13)
8th: Paul 776 (-10 +13)
9th: Rick 773 (-30 +13)

Good luck, everyone!