Dancing with the Stars: Hip Hop Flop

Did we ever find out why Len took this week of "Dancing with the Stars" off?

Maybe he knew ahead of time that the latest installment would feature scattered performances (I like when there are two styles, as opposed to almost everyone doing something different) and a molten mess ("hot mess" wasn't hot enough to describe it) of a hip-hop routine which set hip hop culture back 30 years.

Lord of the Dance Michael Flatley filled in capably, bringing a strange calm to the usually hectic and absurd proceedings. Of course, most of the time, I was wondering if his legs were moving at a breakneck pace out of sight underneath the judging table, Riverdance-style.

Out of the successful performers last night I was most pleased to see Lance and Lacey have a good week and finally tap into Lance's potential. Sure, it was with a universally crowd-pleasing dance (the jive) and he needed a little nudging from N'Sync-ers Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick, but Lance still delivered. Bonus points to Lacey for choreographing a cool routine that included the slide move Lance fell on last time out. Here's hoping Lance can put together (gasp!) TWO good weeks in a row.

Brooke has had many good weeks in a row, but finally faltered in the judges' eyes, except in Flatley's because someone had to carry on the tradition of over-scoring her. We found out Brooke is dealing with an injured foot, so kudos for continuing on. However, Derek's rumba routine for her (intentionally) featured more posing (albeit beautiful posing) than actual dancing.

With Brooke's injury, Warren and Cody each had a chance to step up and each blew his opportunity. I definitely understood the story Warren and Kym were conveying in their rumba (about him being pathetic), but Warren's technique was off. Cody's technique was just fine. Unfortunately, it was for the wrong dance. An unusually sober-sounding and coherent Bruno rightly pointed out Cody's overly-intense samba looked more like a paso doble. At least he made the right call in not wearing that atrocious fake mustache. Unfortunately, it looks like he'll be without partner Julianne Hough (undergoing surgery for endometriosis). Then again, teaming with Edyta will surely give him the chance to ogle a new pro partner all over again. Ogling Julianne was probably starting to become a little stale for him.

Elsewhere, the judges and I continued our remarkable streak of not agreeing on Maurice and Cheryl. While I get what they're saying about their chemistry issues, I really enjoyed their Viennese waltz. I thought it was a huge improvement over Maurice's week 1 ballroom performance (that was the foxtrot). It was almost as big an improvement as Maurice without his mustache.

The straight 7s they gave Maurice actually surprised me as much as the straight 5s they gave Cloris Leachman. She's obviously not a technical wizard on the dance floor, but I feel like she's been dancing more and more over the last few weeks. As a result, Carrie Ann's comments — "We lost Toni for THIS" — were pretty harsh.

They were especially harsh given the fact that they should've been directed at Susan Lucci, who continues to lame up the dance floor each time out (and that Lucci was the one in the bottom two along with Toni Braxton). Not even an all-night session at a mambo club and yet another cameo from DWTS alum Cameron Mathison helped Lucci. Sure, she was moving faster, but she still appears to be dancing tentatively, appears to have negative body strength and is just the opposite of a natural dancer. She's pretty bad (how's that for technical analysis).

She was especially bad during the hip-hop routine, where she appeared lost. The rehearsal footage for the number — choreographed by the creatively spelled ShoTyme — was mildly amusing. I mostly remember Cloris Leachman taking it easy and eating burritos.

The routine itself was mildly disastrous with Lucci bumbling around, Brooke Burke looking like she just didn't want to injure her foot and Cloris hanging at the top of the steps near the back the entire time. Only Lance, Lacey, Warren and Derek really seemed to be into it.

So what'd you think of this episode? Did Chris Kirkpatrick contribute anything (I don't just mean to Lance's performance last night, I mean in general)? Who do you have going home (with those super low scores, we know who the judges WANT it to be) Finally, where the hell was Len? (Assuming he's not dead like Carrie Ann suggested when she looked to the skies.)