Dancing With The Stars 2009: Week 2

Performance Night:

The second performance night (Salsa and Quickstep) mostly confirmed what we learned on the first night, although there were a few surprises. Of note:

Steve-O injured his back during very last move of his dress rehearsal, in which he attempted to kind of flip forward and land on his own back. Apparently, the microphone in his waistband was pushed into his spine, which put him out of action for the night. The judges rated his dress rehearsal, which we saw on tape. It was a lackluster magic-themed performance, but I still think the judges were unnecessarily harsh.

Kim and I just realized that both of the new professional dancers, Chelsie and Dmitry, are from the other dance reality hit, "So You Think You Can Dance." Including Lacey, who joined last season, that's three in a row from the show. I imagine that trend will continue in future seasons.

Chuck Wick, who is Julianne's partner and boyfriend, is seriously under-performing. His dance was a complete joke, and the judges came down on him hard. It's reasonable to assume that he and Julianne just aren't that into winning this season.

I thought the most-improved dancer was Holly, who went from godawful to mildly bad. But the judges had so inflated her first night's score that they didn't feel right giving her a markup. So while her score is flat, I would assume that it will go up next week, should she remain in the competition.

The standouts continue to be Gilles, Melissa, and Shawn.

Melissa addressed her childhood ballet training and Dallas Cowboy cheerleader choreography experience. I guess they thought it was better to put it out there than have people speculating about how she got so good so fast. After her Salsa performance, Len admitted that he was so into her dancing that he found himself "gyrating in [his] chair." That's the first time I can ever remember Len saying anything like that in 8 seasons of the show, so she must have made quite an impression on the old man.

Olympic gymnast Shawn is tiny, but has big muscular arms, like Laila Ali had. Bruno made an ass out of himself by telling her to be "naughty" on the dance floor. Tom intervened and, in a mildly uncomfortable moment, told Bruno that she was only seventeen. Bruno looked a little ashamed.

In other Bruno news, David Alan Grier made fun of Bruno's accent, calling him unintelligible and doing an unflattering impersonation. When Bruno critiqued his dancing, Bruno said, very seriously, "I hope you can understand the words that I'm saying," before ripping his dance performance. Bruno came across as not being able to take a joke (and also, his accent seemed even more pronounced when he was trying to hide it). David and Steve-O were the only dancers whose score actually went down from the first performance to the second.

Here are the scores. The number in parentheses indicates their improvement over their first night's performance (if any). The last number is their combined score from the first two nights:

Gilles and Cheryl: 27 (+3) = 51
Melissa and Tony: 26 (+3) = 49
Shawn and Mark: 24 (+1) = 47
Lil Kim and Derek: 23 (+2) = 44
Chuck and Julianne: 20 (no change) = 40
Denise and Maks: 21 (+3) = 39
David and Kym: 17 (-2) = 36
Lawrence and Edyta: 20 (+4) = 36
Holly and Dmitry: 18 (no change) = 36
Belinda and Jonathan: 18 (+1) = 35
Ty and Chelsea: 20 (+6 = most improved) = 34
Steve-O and Lacey: 14 (-3 = biggest slide) = 31
Steve and Karina: 17 (+4) = 30

Elimination Night

For years now, ABC has been trying to squeeze a full hour out of the five seconds it actually takes to tell us who was eliminated. This year, they took a new approach by including something that actually matters into the results show. For the first time, the bottom two couples will engage in a "Dance-Off," in which they select their strongest performance to date and give it another go. The judges score these performances, and their scores are included int the final tally.

I really like this change, because it means that no one on the set really knows who's going home until that final set of scores is awarded.

This week, computer genius Steve Wozniak was in the bottom two, which was no surprise. But he wound up facing off against former pop star Belinda Carlisle, which was kind of a shocker to me. She didn't do well, but I did expect her to hang around for a little while. Belinda was eliminated, which must have been a huge slap in the face to her, as it means that she got far fewer votes than Steve, Steve-O, and Ty. When you don't have the fan base of a champion cowboy, you know your fifteen minutes are up.

Sorry to see you go-go, Belinda!


The Pool:

Top Scorer (TS) was Gilles, and Bottom Scorer (BS) was Steve-O. Corrected to read: Only Carl picked Gilles as the TS, but no one picked or Steve-O as the BS; everyone who selected Steve split BS points, while Carl picked up a cool 30 (which he needed). Belinda's elimination was a real shock to all of us, as our predictions collectively put her going somewhere in the middle of the pack. As a result, no one actually gained points this week, although some people were harder hit than others.

Paul joined the pool a little late, but he did a random set of picks (with the exception of Holly and Melissa, who we all added in after the first show). Since Paul did so poorly in the previous season, he started with a score of 1020.

Rank: Name Current Score (+/- elimination, +/- TS, +/- BS)

1st: Vegas 969 (-50, +0, +6)
2nd: Lisa 959 (-70, +0, +6)
2nd: Matt 959 (-50, +0, +6)
4th: Kim 956 (-60, +0, +6)
5th: Paul 926 (-100, +0, +6)
6th: Dawn 925 (-70, +0, +0)
7th: Carl 914 (-120, +30, +6)

Those damn Vegas oddsmakers must have had their ear to the ground on Belinda's unpopularity. They're beating all of us, although Lisa and I are just a whisker behind them. With only one week down, it's competitive for everyone except for maybe Carl, who had Belinda picked to win the season. Bad choice, Carl! He'll need to step it up in the coming weeks to get back in the hunt.

For next week, please send me a Top Scorer (TS) pick, a Bottom Scorer (BS) pick.