Dancing With the Stars 2009: Week 9

Performance Night:

One week after the surprise Chuck elimination, the dancers were asked to perform two dances apiece: a ballroom dance, and a latin dance which included a 15 second solo.

They usually make this move a little earlier in the season, in which case there's a huge dropoff in quality. I think they made a good format change this time around, since we're down to five very competent dancers who were able to handle the extra workload.

My favorite dance of the night was probably the first one, a Quickstep by Shawn to the Aladdin movie song "Friend Like Me." A close second was Gilles and his Foxtrot to the tune of Peggy Lee's "Fever." In both cases, the routine was really helped by the song choice.

Ty, who's clearly been pulling some major votes, struggled the most with the two-dance format change. He's game, and he works hard enough to not look completely foolish, but it's definitely time for him to go.

Here were the individual scores:

1st. Melissa and Tony: 27 + 30 = 57
2nd. Shawn and Mark: 27 + 29 = 56
2nd. Gilles and Cheryl: 29 + 27 = 56
4th. Lil Kim and Derek: 25 + 27 = 52
5th. Ty and Chelsea: 21 + 25 = 46


Elimination Night

Man, the ladies must love Ty, because the judges certainly are done with him. Despite scoring significantly behind all of the other dancers, Ty's home voting audience was large enough to put him ahead of Lil Kim, who was eliminated from the show.

This is hugely unfair to Lil Kim if you consider dance ability alone. She got the first ten of the season, and now she's done. Factoring in her lack of people skills makes the elimination a little less unjust. She always seemed a little awkward in front of the camera. We'll have to see if Ty the giant-slayer can beat out the vastly superior Gilles, Shawn, or Melissa to sneak into the finale.


The Pool:

Dawn picked up some big TS points for being the only one to tag Melissa as the top scorer. Everyone who's awake correctly picked Ty for the bottom scorer, and so received a smattering of points.

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

1st: Matt 957 (-10, +0, +5)
2nd: Vegas 879 (+50, +0, +5)
3rd: Kim 856 (-20, +0, +5)
4th: Carl 783 (-50, +0, +5)
5th: Dawn 781 (-80, +30, +5)
6th: Paul 778 (-10, +0, +0)
7th: Lisa 773 (-30, +0, +5)

It's going to have to be a hell of a final two weeks for me to be dethroned from the top of the pool. That's not to say I've got it in the bag-- even Lisa, at the bottom of the pool, has a chance to win, mathematically speaking.

Interestingly, only ten points separate Carl in fourth from Lisa in seventh, so there's very little separating the middle of the pack from a shameful finish.

For next week, please send me a Top Scorer (TS) pick, and a Bottom Scorer (BS) pick. After next week's show (which I might be out of town for), send me your predictions for how the top three couples will fare. There will be enough bonus points riding on the outcome to give everyone a chance to win it all.