I'm half-paying attention to the NCAA Championship game, but tonight we need to remember what happened five years ago: 81-78. The greatest night of my life.
Moving on to less tear-inducing moments, the fourth week of everyone's favorite ballroom dancing competition showcased some great dancing, some inflated scores, and a comment about swan mating. Here we go:
After going last or next-to-last for the first three weeks, Kristi and Mark lead off the show with a paso doble. Before she even starts to dance, I'm feeling a 10. She's due. For the seond week in a row, they get the award for "Most Bizarre Music Selection." I don't think a techno version of "Blue Monday" by Orgy qualifies as ballroom dancing music. Maybe they're purposely handicapping her with bad music, because that's the only way she can be stopped? The routine is great, as usual. She has a small misstep near the end, but she's still in a class by herself in this competition. I was right: first 10s of the year come from Carrie Ann and Bruno, for a score of 29.
Sweet, the Vietnamese Fighting Waltz! Or Viennese Waltz, as it is known to those who didn't see Season 2 of So You Think You Can Dance. Priscilla and Louis do a fairly quick waltz, and her steps are great, but her upper body is weirdly stiff and the hold just looks off to me. Bruno points out her shoulder/line problem. Carie Ann compliments her facial expressions (...with a straight face) but then goes back to the "lift" nonsense from last year. You can't do a lift in a waltz when Carrie Ann is watching, she will dock you for it. Carrie Ann and Len take a point off for the lift, they're given a score of 22.
Adam and Julianne are doing the paso. He comes out on a unicycle, in full Zorro gear, including mustache, cape, and mask. It's typical Adam: not good, stompy, and Julianne does most of the work in an effort to distract from her terrible partner. After its over, Julianne says, "That was friggin' awesome." I don't know if "awesome" is the word I would use, but OK. Carrie Ann says, "I've never seen one like that before." That's what she said. The judges try not to say he was terrible, but he was. He gets a 19.
Did you know that Marlee was deaf? I know, they haven't mentioned it in the past few seconds, but have no fear, the show reminds you by saying that she has trouble keeping her balance because she's deaf. I didn't get to watch the whole dance, because my VCR crapped out in the middle, but the judges seemed to have liked it for the most part. She gets a 24.
Mario tries to recover from his off week with the paso, which going in, sounds good for him. What is with the music tonight?!?! They're dancing to "Higher Ground" by the Chili Peppers, and again, it's a dancetastic version or something. Bad music aside, I wasn't impressed. Maybe it was because they spent so much of the dance apart, but it seemed disjointed. The judges were impressed, though Len thinks he was out of control a bit. I agree with that -- Mario's a very powerful dancer, and sometimes it becomes too much. He gets a 8, 7, 9 for a 24.
Jason and Edyta give my favorite performance of the year. I had to stop and rewind because I was in awe of how great Jason's hands were. This guy is a football player, but his wrists and hands were better than 75% of the girls on my dance team in high school. He carries himself so well on the dance floor, and he and Edyta really made the dance sensual. They're connecting with each other as the competition goes on, and it's showing on the dance floor. They stumble slightly near the end, but they recover so quickly that it really isn't noticable. Bruno sums it up nicely by saying, "It was like a majestic swan intertwined in a mating ritual." I can't do any better than that. They get a 10, 9, 10 to match Kristi with a 29.
Cristian and Cheryl get the paso. They're both wearing these bizarre pleather outfits with capes. Cristian yells at various points during the routine, but overall, Cheryl is doing most of the work. Bruno says Cristian made the dance "very Latino." Maybe cause...he...is? I think they're overscored with a 9, 8, 9 for a 26.
Disaster alert! Derek was practicing last week for the results show and pulled a muscle in his neck! The ambulance came and it was all very dramatic! Shannon had to practice with Jonathan while Derek had to sit out all week with a brace on his neck! How will they ever recover?!?! The answer is: very well. Derek is back out on the dance floor with Shannon and they put together their best routine of the season. They dance to "Keep Holding On," by Avril, which makes it two weeks in a row that a DwtS couple has done the same dance to the same song that Danny and Anya did on SYTYCD last year. Unlike Marisa's jive last week, Shannon and Derek bring themselves to within shouting distance of the awesomeness that was Danya. Shannon's arms are getting so much better from week to week, and she even pulls off a nice spin on one foot near the end of the dance (which Danny and Anya also did...better). Shannon's totally in my top three favorites, I'm so glad she's getting better. Len thinks it was the best dance of the night. They get a 9, 10, 9 for a score of 28.
Marisa and Tony finish up with a paso doble. Tony is wearing yet another strange outfit, this time black pants and a poofy red cropped jacket. This is definitely the best Marisa has been all year, but it's the first time I've noticed just how short she is and how awkward that looks with Tony. She gets her best score of the year: 24.
Overall, I think the scores were too high tonight, and the scores aren't reflecting the sizeable gap between the top tier (Kristi, Jason, and Shannon) and the next step down (Cristian, Mario, Marlee, and Priscilla).
If I was a betting woman, I would put money on Adam finally going home, but I wouldn't be surprised if Priscilla or Marisa got the boot.
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