A Ten-uous Situation? - 
by B-side
Tuesday night, I wasn't able to watch Dancing with the Stars because I was at the Really Awards (which I've gushed about to pretty much everyone). When I was there, however, I did corner Carrie Ann INABA and tell her that two weeks ago, when Emmitt Smith performed the samba, she should have given him a ten. Not to fear, she told me. "I gave him two tens tonight!" she excitedly revealed. What she didn't say was that the tens were flying out faster than Bruno Tonioli could put together an awkward analogy. On a week where everyone needed to learn two dances -- one traditional ballroom, one fierce Latin -- all the dancers, even Jerry, rose to the occasion. It was dance madness for sure, but would anyone be able to capture the ever elusive perfect score?
Answer after the jump...
Jerry & Kym
Kicking off Tuesday's show were Jerry and Kym, who needed to train extra hard to make up for last week's overly jokey paso doble disaster. Jerry explained that his daughter had called him up and had essentially said, "Bring no further shame to the family name!" He was therefore inspired to get back on the parquet and prove to America that he was taking this competition seriously. For their first dance, Jerry and Kym performed the Foxtrot, and amazingly, it was pretty good! I mean, it wasn't excellent (it was Jerry after all), but considering his physical limitations, not to mention his rhythmic ones as well, it was an impressive performance.
Afterwards, the two lined up before the judges, and as is always the case, we cut to the plucky house band where one of the singers was amusingly dressed up in some sort of hybrid garb from India and Tatouine.
Pssst... Roneesha, Halloween is next Tueday.
Nevertheless, the judges praised Jerry's comeback, ultimately awarding him eights across the board. Combined with last week's dreadful score, that made his running total 42 out of 60 (as you may remember, in the wake of Sara Evans' departure, no one was eliminated last week. Instead, their scores were simply added to this week's leaderboard).
Monique & Louis
After last week's krump-tastrophe, Monique knew she had to reel it in this time around. Unfortunately, she simply could not focus on dancing. Poor Louis Van Amstel! What would he do with his struggling ingenue??? Luckily, fellow High School Musical star Ashley Tisdale showed up TOTALLY spontaneously and declared that they were gonna go shop 'til they dropped! This led to a hokey segment as we watched the girls prance around Lisa Kline while Louis pretended to be the exasperated father-figure, holding the bags with a sitcom look of disapproval on his face. Of course, once the cameras went off, I'm sure he giddily joined the girls on their shopping spree -- or at least, he would have, if he didn't so obviously HATE Monique. No woman can replace his dearest Lisa Rinna!
Oh Louis, you're such a ham!
Anyway, Louis and Monique performed the quickstep first, and although I didn't notice it at first, Carrie Ann Inaba inspired me to employ my Tivo technology to go back and see that Monique spent half the dance with her heel stuck in her dress. Pretty impressive considering that Monique seemed to do such a good job. At first, I thought she was a little boring, but then she and Louis seemed to really attack on all cylinders -- dress mishap be damned. The judges were totally blown away, with Len Goodman gettin' all rhyme-y and such: "It was light. It was bright. It was dynamite!" He then added, "It was tight. It was right. It reminded me of graphite. It was unlike a neophyte. It made me thirsty for Sprite. It was not performed out of spite. My favorite color is white. Some movies I find to be trite. Let's get into a fight. I better catch my flight. It leaves tonight. I better check the website. Where's my kite? Oh look, a dust mite!" It continued like this for twenty minutes.
Ultimately, Monique pulled in nines across the board (Carrie Ann said she would have given a ten if there hadn't been one little stumble). With the added 27 points, Monique's total rose to an impressive 50 out of 60. Enough to remain the only woman in the competition?
Emmitt & Cheryl
Shockingly, this week's video footage of Emmitt and Cheryl did not revolve around a trip back to Dallas. Instead, it focused on... well... I don't remember. It wasn't particularly interesting. Oh yeah, they went to a spa. And after that, Emmitt just talked about how he was trained to deal with stress and big events or something like that. Nevertheless, his big anxiety was performing the foxtrot. As we all know, Emmitt goes totally nuts during the fast, Latin dances, but when it comes to slowing down and being graceful, it's a little problematic for him.
Emmitt had nothing to worry about. He had a great waltz that was elegant and graceful and lovely. Wow, sometimes I can't believe what I write. Okay, pretend I didn't just emasculate myself by writing "lovely." Nevertheless, the judges adored the performance, and Len echoed my sentiments, albeit in a funnier, more British way. He called it "lovely jubbly," whatever that means. Bruno, on the other hand, just started saying random phrases. "On the crest of a wave," he dramatically said, later adding, "The lord of the manner!" I half expected him to then comment, "A bouillabaisse of rich textures! Linens bathed in starlight! Velvet waterfalls in a gumdrop jungle!"
Odd phrases aside, the judges were positively smitten, with Carrie Ann doling out the first of many tens that night. Len and Bruno were a bit more stingy, giving only nines, but with twenty-eight points, Emmitt bolted into first place with 53 out of 60.
Mario & Karina
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