Dancing With the Stars 2009: Week 4

Performance Night:

The fourth performance night was, for me, the most entertaining night so far this season. The dances-- Lindy Hop and Argentine Tango-- are both lots of fun to watch, and for the first time, the better dancers turned in some really impressive performances.

In general, the dancers scored about the same in relation to each other. A couple of notes of interest:

-- Lil Kim received the first 10 of the season, which allowed her to break into the top three for the first time. Her routine, an Argentine Tango, was a masterpiece of choreography by partner Derek. It was creative, challenging, and loads of fun to watch. She would have scored even higher, but Len noted that the chemistry between Derek and Kim is lacking. The dance was great, but didn't fully capture the sexy spirit, so she does have some room for improvement.

-- The judges continue to pile on Steve Wozniak, handing him an insulting score of 12. Since he can buy and sell the whole show several times over, I'm sure he's not sweating it. He is clearly the worst dancer of the season, but he should be scoring in the "attaboy" range of 15-18, which is what they usually do for people like Wayne Newton, John Ratzenburger, and Chloris Leachman, (to name a few terrible dancers).

--Melissa and Gilles are now clearly the top dogs. They each had incredible performances, and Gilles nailed a perfect 30 for his tango. I'm not sure he deserved that so early in the season, but it was an amazingly well-performed dance. Looks like partner Cheryl is going for her third trophy.

--Shawn did a nice Lindy Hop, but it had too many gymnastic elements in it to win top scores from the judges. After tying Gilles and Melissa last week, she sank into the middle of the pack for being a little too bouncy. At least Bruno seems to have stopped leering at her.

--Steve-O is continuing to struggle. He just can't seem to keep his mind working quickly enough to keep up with the fast-paced dances he's been given. His Lindy-Hop was fun, but he kept falling a half-beat behind.

--Holly had an injured back, and her clips package showed her screaming in pain every time she twisted or put pressure on it. After visiting a doctor, she learned that it was a pulled muscle and that dancing wouldn't cause any damage. So, she stopped complaining. Her dance was decent, but not great, and her blond hair/white outfit didn't really work for the smoky tango she was performing.

--Samantha was the butt of all of Tom Bergeron's jokes this week, co-hosting as she was with a raspy, cold-induced voice.

Here are the scores. The number in parentheses indicates the change from their previous performance (if any):

1st. Gilles and Cheryl: 30 (+3 = biggest improvement)
2nd. Melissa and Tony: 29 (+2)
3rd. Lil Kim and Derek: 27 (+2)
4th. Shawn and Mark: 25 (-2)
4th. Ty and Chelsea: 25 (+2)
6th. David and Kym: 22 (-2)
6th. Chuck and Julianne: 22 (-1)
7th. Lawrence and Edyta: 19 (-1)
8th. Holly and Dmitry: 16 (-1)
9th. Steve-O and Lacey: 15 (no change)
10th. Steve and Karina: 12 (+2)

Elimination Night

For the first (and probably only) time this season, they decided to identify a bottom 3 instead of a bottom 2, and then they eliminated two couples from the competition.

They made a full hour of programming out of the revelation, but here, I'll give it to you straight: the bottom 3 were also the bottom 3 scorers, which is to say Holly and the two Steves.

We can say with certainty that Steve-O pulled more votes than Holly, because he was spared, while the Playmate and the Apple whiz were sent home.

Holly just became the latest pretty face to fail to stand out. She tried hard to be sweet and likable, but the end result was bland and maybe a little dippy. The only way she was going to last longer in this competition was if she was a terrific dancer, which turned out not to be the case.

Steve Woz's storyline was a certainly different. He is the type of dancer that the show would usually applaud as a fun character who proves that everyone can dance. A roly-poly nerd who shows up on a Segway and never stops smiling is a shoo-in for encouragement and good-natured ribbing. But the behind-the-scenes fight between Steve and the producers spilled out onto the dance floor, and I was just shocked at how harsh the judges comments and scores were.


The Pool:

Three players picked Gilles for TS, and got 10 points apiece for their efforts. Five players correctly chose Steve for the BS, which was worth 6 points apiece. This worked out really well for Carl and Lisa, who each made both correct choices, but not so well for Dawn, who got bupkus (am I spelling that right?).

For the elimination, I went with the order in which they were announced, which means that Holly is out in 11th place, while Steve is out in 10th. No one was surprised by either elimination-- every single person had each of them out in the bottom four.



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

1st: Matt 969 (+50, -30, +10, +0)
2nd: Kim 898 (-20, -10, +0, +6)
3rd: Vegas 891 (-10, -30, +0, +6)
4th: Paul 868 (-20, -30, +0, +6)
5th: Lisa 861 (-10, -30, +10, +6)
6th: Carl 845 (-20, -30, +10, +6)
7th: Dawn 785 (-20, -20, +0, +0)


In general, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer this week, which I don't mind as long as I'm the richest one of all. I padded my lead by hitting the Holly elimination on the nose, while Dawn had the biggest drop of anyone, sending her deeper into the seller. The only actual change in rank was for Kim, who overtook the Vegas experts to slide into second place.

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