I Guess You Gotta Die to Get Kicked Outta Here....

Okay. I understand that at the beginning it’s not as much about dancing as it is a popularity contest. I get it that Denise Richards was gonna go sooner rather than later. But how on earth did Denise Richards go before Steve-O, Wozniak or Holly Madison?????! My heart is broken - Maks is gone! At the very least people could have voted for HIM!!!! I’m verklempt. (And I’m not even Jewish!) America, you have disappointed me. Okay, fine, I am a professional and will get through this blog, albeit with a heavy heart.

Tom begins the show by announcing that there will be two eliminations next week. I guess they were counting on one of the injured Steves to drop out, and when they (to our dismay) decided to keep going, the producers had to go to Plan B. "In no particular order" they announce the first four safe couples: Melissa and Tony, Gillis and Cheryl - don’t you just love Cheryl’s reaction to good scores and staying in the competition? She always looks surprised and genuinely happy. Shawn and Mark are safe this week. And .... Steve and Karina!!! I was thinking that Karina was getting better at not looking so dour while waiting for her fate (which was certainly the bottom two tonight - wait, what??!!!) Wozniak looked totally shocked and Karina screamed like a schoolgirl, hopping all over. All the couples got a good chuckle out of it and I tried to pick my chin up off the floor. Okay. That means Steve-O and Lacey or Holly and Dmitri are gone for sure. Right? RIGHT?

Not many people (except perhaps teenage boys or "teenage" men) were impressed with Steve-O as a member of the Jackass crew and expected him to actually be a jackass. His dancing ability wasn’t all that. But, the longer he sticks around the more I realize that he’s really not a bad guy, tattoos and all. In his confessionals he was genuinely bummed about messing up his Foxtrot the night before. "I knew the dance and I just .... blew it." (Empathy is fine, I just don’t see how it translates into votes!)

Backstage Samantha interviews the safe stars. (Notice her earrings? Can they be any bigger?) Woz is told he got the lowest score since Season 2, and he mentions that he was more shocked to still be around than when he got served with divorce papers. Melissa was happy, saying they put in a lot of work and many hours of practice, with Tony piping up "I know!" in the background. (I did a little research on who in Season 2 got the lower score and found this in Wikipedia: "The scoring begins with the judges' marks. Each judge gives a 1 to 10 score, for a total score of 3 to 30 (the lowest individual score, however, was a 2 for Master P's Paso Doble in season 2, and the lowest total score for a dance was an 8)." Couldn’t find who got the 8, but assuming it was Master P probably isn’t that big a stretch).

The next four safe couples are announced: Lawrence and Edyta; David and Kym; Chuck and Julianne and Lil’ Kim and Derek. (Side note: my apologies to Derek Hough for losing my mind yesterday and blogging his name as "Derrick." Where that came from I have no clue!)

We are now treated to a demo film about the two new dances being introduced for next week. It was announced at the beginning of the show that Cloris and Corky would dance for us - now that they’re not seriously trying to compete it’s fun to see them. The Lindy Hop is one of the dances. It was explained that "Lindy" means "young woman" - and showing Cloris during this explanation was the ultimate irony. "It is a dance of young exuberance" and we see the two leaning on each other and panting. The Argentine Tango is a dance sometimes connected with "women of the evening" (Cloris, looking confused, realizes she’s not gonna make ANY money) and includes "the chase" (see Cloris chase poor, terrified Corky), "flirty feet" (if Corky wasn’t so old he might actually enjoy this part), and "furious foot flicks" (shown with sped-up film). It gives us "the emotional connection between the couple," and we see a passionate kiss between Corky and Cloris. And let’s see how that helps the couples learn the dances for next week! (*Right*)

Hall and Oates come out to perform "Man Eater." I liked them when they first arrived on the music scene (still do, actually) but I was shocked to see how short Hall is. That quickly changed to Karina’s dance with Tony, Dmitri and Maks, which was HOT! At the end of the song, Karina pushes away Tony and Dmitri (and their regular shirts) and chooses Maks (of course) and his open-shirt bare chest. *Sigh* (If any of this "old lady love for Maks" makes anyone uncomfortable just let me know, I suppose I can keep it toned down a bit. Maybe.)

Adele (whoever that is - I reiterate, I’m old) comes out and sings, sounds pretty good to me. Not as good as seeing Edyta and hubby Alec dance together and I’m sure the men enjoyed her (lack of) costume.

After some talk from the stars about the Dance-Off, the remaining four couples are told who will be dancing off. Steve-O and Lacey are told they are ... safe? Okay, okay. Holly and Dmitri will be dancing off with .... Denise and Maks! Ty and Chelsea will live to dance another day (and it’s a good thing too. I realize as far as notariety he’s not a big name, but his dancing ability is much better than one would expect from a cowboy!)

Holly and Dmitri will dance their Samba once again. They got a 17 Monday night and I saw no reason to improve upon that score - and it looked like her foot still came off the ground on the "lift." Len said she made a little mistake in the middle, but she came out "hot" tonight. Bruno told Holly she had "no worries about hotness" but her timing leaves a bit to be desired. Carrie Ann praised her for keeping her foot on the ground this time. They got one more point this time: 6-6-6=18.

So out come Denise and Maks to reprise (better, hopefully) their Samba. Denise looks like she messed up too, and she still can’t shake it much. Bruno surprised me by saying "I cannot believe how much you have improved from last night." Carrie Ann said she was good under pressure and Len said "the Dance-Off gives the opportunity to prove that you should stay, and tonight you do (deserve to stay)." They go 4 points better than the 16 of Monday night: 6-7-7=20.

There’s a little controversy about what Carrie Ann wrote on the paper (allegedly she wrote "7" but showed a "6" on her paddle) and I checked out her blog to find out her explanation - and I’m even more confused now! The excerpt from Carrie Ann’s blog:

Let me explain what happened. We score on a piece of paper. All three judges write down their scores on a piece of paper and I hand it off to Rob, our stage manager, who takes it to the booth where the producers and graphics person are waiting for it so they can type it in -- so when we actually show our paddles, they have the piece of paper in hand (and the numbers are displayed on-screen). Tonight there was a mix-up between Bruno's score and my score. Bruno gave Denise and Maks a 7 and I gave them a 6. I think that most people figured it out just by looking at it. It was just a mix up that was not that big of a deal. Denise’s score was in fact a 20 and Bruno and I held up the correct paddles that represented our actual scores, the ones we'd written on the paper. So, there was no real problem.

Tom was saying that Carrie Ann wrote down a 7. Carrie Ann blames it on the producers misreading the paper. I still don't get it - I guess it’s just me being slow on a Hump Day morning....

I'm going to do some research on the Dance-Off being meaningful, too. Denise and Maks did MUCH better than Monday night, improving by 4 points and beating Holly and Dmitri by 3. Yet it really didn't mean much in the end because they still went home. Anyone in my frame of mind thinking that the Dance-Off is interesting, but seems unnecessary? It seems like torture for the stars (kind of on par with making the ousted American Idol sing after they've been told to go home).

Anyway..... Bye-bye Denise and Maks. *snif!* Are you as shocked as I am that the Steves are still around? Who on earth is voting for them? Who should go next? Looking forward to the new dances (and do you have any idea what they're supposed to look like after Cloris and Corky's demonstration?)