Dancing with the Stars: Jive Turkeys

All right everybody, this is going to be a lightning quick "Dancing with the Stars" recap because I have to hop on a plane to Puerto Rico in a few hours for the rest of the week for my grandmother’s memorial service.

(Hopefully, I’ll be able to get a very skilled, and very beautiful writer to pinch hit for me.)

It should be pretty easy to do because this week’s installment was mostly a disappointment, so there really aren’t too many positive things to talk about.

I understand the idea of "saving the best for last", but having to sit through an hour and fifteen minutes of mostly underwhelming performances before we got to Jason Taylor and Kristi Yamaguchi was painful.

I’d even argue they weren’t on their game. Taylor missed a few spots during his jive, which wasn’t nearly hoppy enough. I know tall guys tend to be more conscious (*cough* Clyde Drexler *cough*), but Taylor needed to go bigger. Or as Len said, "sometimes you’re the rooster, other times you’re the feather duster" (his version of "You’re the disease, and I’m the cure", I suppose.)

Kristi was her usual excellent self, despite the fact that the rehearsal footage unsuccessfully tried to drum up some obstacle for her to overcome. This time, it was her inhibition when tackling the tango. I’d love to get into her performance, but I was too distracted by the band’s techno-flavored take on Duran Duran’s "Rio" to notice anything she did on the dance floor. Len and Carrie Ann had valid points when pointing out that she needed to convey more emotion or joy (or anything!) through her excellent technique. Meanwhile, Bruno did NOT have a valid point when he said he wanted her to be a dirty girl.

The rest was mostly a muddle of mediocrity.

How bad was it? One of my favorite performances of the evening was Adam Corolla’s tango (and I say that in a completely unironic way). Don’t look now, but he’s getting better every week. Now if only he could keep his mouth shut. This week he rambled on about pimps, prostitutes and made slightly homophobic remarks about the costume designer. He’s not as bad as Penn though. Another performance I really enjoyed was Priscilla Presley’s tango. I continue to be surprised at how well she can move. This performance would’ve been even more effective if she were able to emote with her face.

I thought Shannon and Derek had a fun, but exhausting routine (Derek is a genius at choreography), but her leg work is improved, but not where it needs to be. Steve Guttenberg came back with a decent tango, but he was still shuffling his feet quite a bit. I mostly liked that he referred to himself as "The Gute" (I thought that was only something other people did). Marlee opened the show with a fun, but sloppy jive. She missed a couple of beats, but I’ll forgive that because, hello, she’s deaf. Finally, I didn’t get the high praise for Cristian’s jive and thought he was WAY overscored with a 25. I thought his arms were pretty bad throughout (who am I, Carrie Ann?) and he was slouchy most of the time. It’s like they REALLY want him to be better than he actually is.

Last and certainly least are Marissa and Mario. I feel kind of a bad that the judges let her have it after her hella lame jive, but I kind of agree with them. She’s got a freakin’ Tony award for "Hairspray", so we KNOW she can dance, but she’s yet to bring it to the ballroom. What I didn’t agree with was the judges questioning her effort. Unfortunately, I don’t think she’s going to get a chance to show us what she can do, despite her desperate cries of "I really want to stay." Even though they wasted a fun jive song (Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend") my favorite thing about the performance was Tony's ridiculous preppy sweater and the fact that he incorporated female extras into the beginning of his routine.

That’s because I think Mario (pictured, left, with partner Karina) has earned enough goodwill to stay around for at least one more week. This despite the fact that his tango was the epitomy of "hot mess". Some of the moves and Karina’s "straight out of ’Moulin Rouge’" getup was hot, but mostly the performance was a mess. They couple made several mistakes, the band’s rendition of "Roxanne" was distractingly bad (though not as bad as "Rio") and, by the end, it looked like Karina was trying to get away from Mario.

So what’d you think of this episode? Is Tony REALLY the "bad boy of the ballroom"? (I’d go with Maksim, who I miss this year.) Was I the only one underwhelmed by tonight’s dances? Could Adam Corolla really have an extended run? (I like that he genuinely wants to do right by his partner Julianne) What was up with Guttenberg's pot and goggles thing? Finally, who do you have going home? (I’m going with Marissa.)