Dancing with the Stars, Week 1: Men

First of all, damn you ABC for not putting the full episodes of DwtS on your website. I had set my VCR to record, not realizing that the time was still off from "springing ahead" last week, and missed the whole show. And tonight, I'll be at the SU game at the same time American Idol and DwtS are on. What is a blogger to do?

Turn to YouTube, of course. I wasn't very surprised by any of the performances tonight. Adam and Penn were terrible, Steve and Cristian were middling, and Jason and especially Mario seem like they're the guys to beat.

I realize Kym has a lot of experience with dancing around her partner (see: Springer, Jerry and Cuban, Marc) and she showed off that particular talent again last night with Penn, who stomped around the dance floor while Kym tried her best to draw attention away from him. He's justly punished with a score of 16 out of 30.

Jason seemed pretty nervous, but like the judges pointed out, he had great posture in his foxtrot and will probably only get better as the season goes on. Once he loosens up a bit and gets used to the steps, he'll be great. His score of 22 is well-earned.

Cristian and Cheryl were up next, and while his footwork was pretty good, his hunched posture was really distracting. Cristian's also the least well-known contestant, so hopefully he'll hang aound a couple weeks, because it seems like he'll only get better with time. Score: 21.

The producers must be getting back at Julianne for winning twice in a row, because clearly she will not be extending the streak this year with Adam Carolla. He was awful, and his score of 15 reflected that.

Mario was amazing. He clearly has natural rhythm and dance ability, and pretty much established himself as a front-runner. He's rewarded with the highest score of the night, a 24.

Steve Guttenberg is so clearly happy to be here that you kind of ignore the fact that he's not a great dancer. His foxtrot wasn't the greatest, but you know he'll do whatever he can to get better for next week. Score: 18.

Bring on the women! Bring on Mark Ballas and Johnathan Roberts! Recap of the second night will be tomorrow, once I find everything on YouTube again. Also, American Idol Top 11 tonight: will Archuleta recover from his disastrous first week? Will Seacrest annoy the poop out of me? Will I ever learn how to spell Chikezie's name without looking it up first? (Answers: Probably, definitely, and no.) Stay tuned.