Tonight's show starts off with a bold warning from Tom Bergeron: "Forget what you thought of ballroom because tonight it's all out WAR!" Yes, it turns out that war is now a sparkly, campy affair. I always wondered why there were so many sequins in Iraq. But I digress...

After the catchy opening credits whiz by, we find our intrepid hosts standing above the ballroom. Samantha Harris is dressed in a lovely green dress that reminds me of my grandmother's draperies. She manages to read her two lines without stuttering once: a new record. Our finalists then descend into the ballroom, ready to whoop some ballroom ass. Everyone seems to be dressed relatively normally (for ballroom standards), but I can't help feeling like Emmitt might suddenly run out of the building, in search of the nearest Riverdance production.

FYI: in the audience tonight are two of last season's most memorable performers: Stacy Keibler and George Hamilton. Surprisingly, they don't have a box of Ritz crackers nearby. Anyway, Samantha and Tom babble about tonight's show, but we can barely hear them over the raucous noise of the audience, which seems to believe that there might be a live beheading shortly. We do learn that for tonight's show, each couple will revisit their favorite performance, debut one new original freestyle dance, and then each will shake their bon-bons to the same song. Enticing!

And now, to the dancing!

Oh wait, not yet. First we have to sit through a segment detailing each of the finalists' journey through ballroom. To think that I actually thought we'd be seeing dancing right away. I should know better. This is Dancing with the Stars, after all. It wouldn't be complete without some yawn-inducing filler.

I will say this though. This video segment does get credit for showing footage of Mario and Karina making out when they thought the camera man was gone. I don't know if this stuff was shown on one of the results shows, but I'm seeing it now for the first time, and it's hilarious. AND THEY THOUGHT THEY COULD HIDE FROM US. Oh, Mario. You try to act all goody-two-shoes, but we know you're banging your professional day and night. Or at least, you were until you dropped her head on the floor. Way to go, jerk!

By the way, it's now been like ten minutes, and this segment is still going on. I'd rather have another performance from Willa Ford than sit through this any longer.

Finally, at fourteen minutes into the hour, the segment ends, and it's time for... a commercial. Great.

When we return, I'm convinced that it's finally, finally time to start the dancing, and it's looks like I might be right. Maybe. Samantha Harris tries her first joke of the night, and as expected, it's a total, wonderful failure. The only person who laughs at it is, well, herself. We then watch a video segment detailing the training process each team underwent in preparation for their first dances, which both happen to be to the same tune. Len Goodman pops up and explains to us their song selection ("Sir Duke" by Stevie Wonder), and then we learn that both teams will be performing the samba. This leads to general posturing by the guys and some general threats ("Mario, I'm coming after you!"), and then at long last we're finally ready to dance. Let's get this samba party started!

Emmitt & Cheryl: I Am Samba

Emmitt and Cheryl kick off this dance the way they do nearly every other dance: with a peppy strut towards each other and down the staircase. I gotta admit that Emmitt looks a bit nervous and stiff, but he quickly sheds his nerves as he goes bananas with the shakin' and the swiveling. It all climaxes when he executes a sideways shimmy shuffle (I'm sure there's a much more technical term for that). The audience goes absolutely wild, and it looks like he'll be in store for some great marks once again.