Dancing with the Stars: Dancing Through the Decades

We’re down to the final 5, which works out perfectly because the five remaining celebrities are the five best dancers. (If you wanted to make a case for Mark Dacascos instead of Kelly Osbourne, I’d listen.)

This season, there’s no “star” who infiltrated the final five thanks solely to his or her fan base (I love you Ty Murray, but you had no business being in the final four last year).

As a result, we got one of the more spectacular “Dancing with the Stars” episodes in recent memory. That’s what happens when you combine solid dancing (one couple was nearly perfect) with the unique “DWTS” brand of loopiness. I mean, really – why did it take so long for this show to incorporate that brilliant/ridiculous decades concept?

Enough of me intro-ing. Let’s talk about last night’s episode, which had the couples perform a ballroom dance followed by a Latin round inspired by a specific decade. (Or in Joanna and Derek’s case, the abstract future.) Here’s how they did, in order of appearance.

Mya & Dmitry: Tricky editors. They had Mya insist in rehearsal that the couple was really going to bring the “wow factor” when that’s precisely what Len has been killing them for all this time. I was yelling “don’t do it” at the TV the same way you yell at a teen not to go outside to check out a suspicious noise in a horror movie. Instead, their quickstep was COMPLETELY in hold after a brief intro and absolutely impeccable. And that was only their second best dance of the evening. When I saw how much disco they incorporated into their 70’s samba, I worried Len would complain about too much “messin’ about.” (I mean, what’s the point of doing a 70’s theme if you’re not going to have disco?) Fortunately, the judges flipped for the long-overdue fusion of disco and samba (LOVED the extended samba rolls) and gave them a perfect 30. Dmitry’s porn-stache, on the other hand, gets a perfect 60!

Aaron Carter & Karina: There’s no way Aaron Carter makes it past Tuesday night, right? I mean, the guy got a 29 last week and still had to dance for his life. Despite the inevitability of his departure, I have to say how shocked I am at how much I ended up enjoying the Aaron Carter era in “Dancing with the Stars.” It was more enjoyable than his fox trot which WAS a bit clunky. The judges said they appreciated how hard Aaron worked. The only problem was that we could SEE how hard he was working. For his second dance, he taught a sickly Karina some leftover Backstreet Boys move for their 90’s samba. Aaron was an expert on the 90’s because he had a hit song in 1999. (Isn’t that like saying you’re a child of the 70’s if you were born in 1979?) In the shock of the evening, the samba was actually pretty solid and surprisingly charming – kinda like Aaron’s run on this show.

Joanna Krupa & Derek: I’m not sure how much fan support Joanna has (I continue to insist Derek has more than she does), but she’s lucky that Derek is a mad genius of a choreographer. I can’t really imagine another choreographer on this show (but I can imagine a bunch of “So You Think You Can Dance” choreographers) coming up with that brilliant, funky and VERY well-danced futuristic paso doble (pictured, left). I don’t want to leave Joanna out in the cold either – she absolutely nailed all the side-by-side stuff that is very easy to screw up. That dance alone will put them through to next week, which is lucky for them because their quickstep was sloppy, oddly disconnected and mostly forgettable.

Kelly Osbourne & Louis: I like Kelly a lot (like everyone else), but if I had a vote, I’d send her home this week. Yes, I’m happy that her rehearsal footage was 100% less depressing this week (Louis putting her distractions in a box was funny). And, yes, her jazzy, elegant first-round fox trot was her best dance in weeks. (How is it possible she hadn’t done a ballroom dance since week 1?) However, I was NOT feeling her 60’s jive at all. She just wasn’t physically able to dance fast enough to give us an effective jive. Also, I agree with Carrie Ann that the doll gimmick went on too long and was a little creepy. To me, it was the worst dance of the evening. Still, her fan base has never allowed her to drop to the bottom two, so she should be back next week.

Donny Osmond & Kym: Donny and Kym had an emotional (and overly melodramatic) heart-to-heart in which Donny admitted that he was burned out and not enjoying dancing anymore. (I told you all those high-energy dances were killing him.) Though he ended up in the bottom of the leaderboard, I thought he had a very solid night. I have no idea whether his Viennese waltz was any good, but that’s because I was absolutely transfixed by how well Donny sold the dance. (This doesn’t usually happen to me.) That turned out to be a warm-up for an 80’s paso doble that trumped Joanna and Derek’s futuristic paso in the insanity category. At first, I thought Donny was a “Dangerous”-era Michael Jackson, but the inspiration was clearly Adam Ant. I don’t know what the inspiration for the smoke machine and insane lighting in the middle of his dance was, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Despite being in last place, he’s a lock for the semifinals (and the finals).

So what’d you think of this episode? Is it worse to be an airy fairy or artsy fartsy? When are all these robots from the future that we keep hearing about going to actually show up? Finally, is there any way Aaron Carter doesn’t go home?