Cat Deeley appears after the dance, and she is awkward right off the bat, as she describes one of the choreographers as being "in full effect." She is just terrible whenever she tries to use any kind of remotely urban American slang. (Who knows, maybe they say "in full effect" in England too, but anyway I bet they don't say it where Cat Deeley's from.) Aleks took a lot of heat last night for being too white, so I think it is only fair to point out that Cat out-whites her in all statistical categories. Cat is dressed relatively inoffensively tonight, which is no fun for me.

What's the Deeley, yo?

Same three judges from last night. Mia is wearing a ridiculous scarf/tie. Nigel reveals something interesting when he tells us that the contestants are "getting hundreds of thousands of votes each." You'll notice he did not say millions. Hm. I know it's a summer series, but those figures strike me as kind of disappointing, when you consider that Idol gets tens of millions of votes. Out of curiosity, does anyone know a ballpark figure for how many people vote during Dancing with the Stars, just for comparison?

Mental illness can be fun!


How did I miss this last night? This was Nigel krumping.

You aren't going to believe this, but we open the show with some flashbacks to last night. Man, with this level of flashbackery, this is going to become a very quick and easy recapping job. We see a little new (to me) footage of the contestants getting out of a van yesterday morning and looking sleepy, and then we go into just showing clips from the performances and judging. There is a little bit of new stuff thrown in here and there. We see Ivan complimenting Allison after they leave the stage, which is cute.

We get a reset of Nigel's "tofu" line in reference to Aleks's lack of flavor. Huh. I didn't really think that line was funny enough to merit a second airing. Do you think it has something to do with it being said by the executive producer of the show? Nah - that must just be a coincidence. I guess we should all be glad that Nigel doesn't start talking about his denture cream or his back waxing, because there's no doubt that if he wanted that on the air, that's what would be on the air.

There is one snippet of new footage that sheds a lot of light on Mia's utter dismantling of Joy's self-esteem and reasons for living last night. It's Joy and Dmitry, getting ready to go on stage for dress rehearsal. They are arguing about what is supposed to happen on beats 6, 7, 8.

Dmitry: Don't argue, because it's 6....
Joy: We should go from the beginning. From the beginning.
Dmitry: Well, I didn't make any mistakes, because somebody didn't want to practice. I'm sorry.

She rolls her eyes. He finally turns to the camera and says, "Are we supposed to be with the camera?" Yes, apparently you are. He tries to back and fill, telling the camera that they are just tired and nervous. Joy pastes on a big fake smile and says, "I just smile."

Passive-aggressive much, missy?

You can tell from this clip that they really don't like each other at all. Wow - that is a huge disadvantage in the competition. I think the underlying cause is that she sucks; she just can't dance as well as he can, and he resents being partnered with her, while she's slightly intimidated by him. My sister has explained to me that it was better last season, when contestants drew new partners every week. It does seem that that would be more fair.

Now that we've seen this backstage drama, it seems like the judges' comments last night were really about validating Dmitry. And maybe Nigel was also onto something when he suggested that Dmitry could have been trying harder to help Joy out. I wonder how much the judges know about the dynamics between the dancers during rehearsals. Obviously, they know more than I do.

Cat Deeley says, "That's how it went down last night." I swear, even with something so mainstream, yet still just a little bit slangy - she sounds artificial saying it, like she practiced in front of a mirror. Picture Queen Elizabeth saying, "That's how it went down last night." Actually, yeah. Picture that again. Wasn't that awesome?

I guess what I'm saying is that the host needs to be American, because stupid American viewers like me are programmed to think that English accents sound classy and snooty, which is the opposite of how this show should be. Yes, I know there are all different kinds of English accents, but Cat Deeley's sounds upper-crusty to me, and if it sounds that way, then it doesn't really matter whether she has a shred of class in her or not. She has too much fake class for this show. Now, if they could actually get Queen Elizabeth as the host, I would waive everything I just said. Tea and crumpets for everybody!

Posted by Amanda on June 23, 2006 4:30 PM