Dancing With the Stars, Week 2

The Mambo & The Quickstep

Now that each couple has tackled a Latin dance and a ballroom dance, we're starting to see a real divide between the contenders and the pretenders, with a few couples yet to find a designation.

Pretending: Monica Seles is terrible. She's very nice and all, but she clearly has no natural rhythm and it's painful to watch. The mambo is better than last week's foxtrot, but not by much.

Penn Jillette is terrible and annoying, which might be worse. His quickstep was more clomping than dancing and then he wouldn't shut up when the judges tried to critique him.

Adam Carolla seems to try a bit harder this week, but though I love Julianne's mambo choreography, he's still bad. And then Bruno gives him an 8? Wha?!?!

Contending: Shannon moves into a contender position this week on the strength of her quickstep. Derek is doing a great job with her, and I think she's gaining confidence.

Jason Taylor is fantastic. His mambo is incredible, he's charismatic, and, oh yeah, he's sexy as all get out. The judges go (rightly) nuts for it and he's rewarded with a 27.

Marlee does it again this week, this time with a quickstep. The judges rightly compliment her musicality. She's definitely hanging around for awhile.

Kristi and Mario keep their front-runner statuses, Kristi on the strength of her mambo and Mario with his quickstep. This competition is still Kristi's to lose, in my opinion.

Still deciding: I know Steve Guttenberg isn't the greatest dancer, and his mambo wasn't anything to write home about, but he's so gosh-darn endearing that you almost don't care...almost. He's certainly willing to give his all for every dance and looks like he's having fun doing it, but he's not good.

Cristian and Cheryl's quickstep seemed a bit off, and though he's towards the upper end of the talent pool here, something's missing, and I don't know if he's totally connecting with the audience. I feel very 'wait and see' about him, and I think he's still headed for a middle-round exit.

I know Priscilla did a good job last week, and was pretty good again this week, but seriously, I just cannot get past the whole face thing. When she did that stupid tiger crawl on the floor, I almost peed myself in fright.

Marissa...starts crying when she talks about last week?? And then comes out and does an okay quickstep, but I'm with Carrie Ann, I was hoping for more from her. Also, I was really distrcted by her perma-smile -- maybe relax it every once in a while?

Elimination info will be up shortly: I've still got to sit through American Idol. Blech.