Dancing with the Stars: Doubling Your Pleasure

First, a moment of silence for the dearly departed Sabrina Bryan.

Yes, I realize that it's not exactly like the apparently beloved (but not by people at home) Cheetah Girl passed away. But part of what makes this show so semi-unintentionally hilarious are gestures like most of the dancers last night sporting cheetah paws on their costumes (or on their skin) to honor her memory. I know they're partly kidding, and partly serious, but I can't tell which they're doing more — and I like that.

As for the dancing on Monday night, we're finally at the point in the competition where the contestants have to master two routines, a ballroom and a Latin. As someone who is consistently impressed at how these celebrities with no professional dancing experience (except for Sabrina) can master one routine in the span of a week, it boggles my mind how they can learn two. I think the answer is pretty clear — these people are not nearly as busy as their rehearsal footage edits them to be.

Helio kicked off the evening with one of those non-traditional to an odd song tangos contestants will throw out every once a while. For some reason, I was actually ok with it, even though it wasn't his best dance at all. Why should EVERY tango have to look the same with the dramatic music, and the rose in the mouth? It was also sweet to see the taped message from his parents in Brazil, though it seemed like they might be reading cue cards (for some reason the thought of Portuguese cue cards crack me up). Later, Helio came back with a fun samba, which for some reason prompted Len Goodman to take a shot a president Bush (?!). "Just because you're Brazilian doesn't mean you can samba, just like just because you're from Texas, doesn't mean you'll make a good president." Zing!

Scary Spice and her flowy pants delivered a subpar (for her) fox trot. For some reason, whenever I can't tell what style of dance I'm watching, it's always the fox trot — and slightly boring. She more than made up for it with a hot AND fun (my favorite kind of thing) paso doble to En Vogue's "Free Your Mind." (pictured, right) I like that she dressed the part — also, the dancing was really good, earning her a perfect 30 and launching her to the top of the leaderboard.

In fact, most of the contestants seemed to come alive during their second dance (the Latin one) and sort of sleepwalk through the first. This was the case with Jennie Garth (with an inoffensive, forgettable, sleepy Viennesse Waltz) that only Bruno liked, prompting the comments that she was a "water nymph in a magic lake." To me, her best dance was a rumba (Derek Hough is rapidly becoming my favorite choreographer) prompting Bruno to say "housewives are sexy!" Hokay. To me, Len was more spot on in his assessment that the only person who doesn't think she's a good dancer is Jennie, and that's exactly the reason why I can't fully get into her. If she doesn't believe in herself, why should I?

Cameron had to keep his feet moving fast last night, turning in a spastic quickstep, and, later, a more controlled, yet still high-energy jive. Those dances are tough for taller people like Cameron, so I was impressed. What I'm not as impressed by is his reliance on leaping about the dance floor or off of something in nearly every routine. I get it, you're Superman.

Other than Mel B's paso doble, my favorite dance was certainly Marie Osmond's cute quickstep, which was a more a briskstep to compensate for Marie's skill set, but still VERY well done. Not as good was a slowed-down cha cha later in the evening. Marie's eventful season on this show took another turn — apparently, she'd dedicated that performance to her dad, who passed away a few hours after the show ended.

Finally, we had the elegant and classy Jane Seymour perform a boring quickstep and a merely adequate Latin dance (which I can't even remember to be honest). I think I agreed with Carrie Ann for the first time this season when she basically said, Jane's dances are nice to watch, but they're not terribly exciting — or interesting. As a result, she's now gone home — probably doing something elegant and classy.

So what did you think of this week? Where did you wear your cheetah paw in memory of Sabrina? When the show started, did you ever think Marie AND Jennie would be in the top 5? Finally, could the judges be any less helpful with their scoring? It seems like they don't have any paddles lower than an 8, making all the scores incredibly close. (First place and sixth place on Monday were separated by 4 points!)