Carmen Miranda -

Well, I was on a train late last night and missed watching the Dancing With the Stars semis on TV. Now I realize how hard the show makes it for you to catch re-runs. Geesh. Rickey doesn’t have everything posted, so I went to YouTube, and they have most of the competition routines, but the sound quality is crap and subtitles (in, for example, Gilles’s visit to his hometown, Cannes, with the French interviews with his mother and friends) are cut off. And they didn’t have the full episode. The YouTube clips re-direct you to this website, but once there, they just keep making you take these ridiculous quizzes, telling you, eventually the site will be unlocked. Well, it never unlocked for me — instead they redirected me to more and more quiz websites. I hope that site’s not a scam that unleashes some kind of virus or something. Anyway, people beware: don’t try to watch re-runs on watchdancingwithstars.com.

Anyway, I at least saw the routines. I only saw the bio on Gilles. Were there bios on the rest of the competitors? If not, that’s kind of silly, interesting as his little trip to Cannes was.

So, semis consisted of: Mark and Shawn dancing Jive and Argentine Tango; Melissa and Tony Quickstep and Cha Cha; Ty and Chelsie Samba and Viennese Waltz; and Gilles and Cheryl Salsa and Waltz (although one YouTube clip called it a Quickstep).

My favorites were Mark and Shawn’s Argentine Tango and both dances by Melissa and Tony.

Continue reading “THE GIRL NEXT DOOR? NO, MELISSA RYCROFT IS MORE LIKE A GLAMOROUS OLD-TIME HOLLYWOOD STARLET!”

Maks and Denise’s Samba: Okay that was awful. Sorry but it was. She was hopping and running and skipping and doing just about everything but Samba. It is the hardest of the Latin dances — Len’s right, but still. I agree with Bruno that it wasn’t so hot, but don’t know if I’d call if flat as a “waffle”. And I agree with Carrie Ann– how frightened and stiff did she look?! During those Samba rolls, it looked like he was pulling her on top of him, then pushing himself onto her. Like she was the cat being forced to dance with Pepe le Peu. Interesting choreography from Maks — the one-legged hops, the waving his chest toward hers, flirtatiously. Extremely corny having him come to practice dressed as a Carmen Miranda-esque sambista to get her to stop being so serious. And don’t tell adults to feel and not think, Maks! Can’t be done. You learn by feeling as a child, as an adult you have to think; you’ve lived too much of your life by using your brain by then.

Chuck and Julianne’s Foxtrot: That was pretty good. Fairly suave, though he looked a bit of a goof on those side by sides in the middle. A little too much on his toes, I think was what it was. And it was pigeon-toed at that. He just looked a little Pee Wee Herman-ish. But overall, very sophisticated and he looked fairly comfortable in the close hand-hold. Yeah, Carrie Ann just said on the grapevine it looked like he hunched over a bit — maybe that’s what made it Pee Wee-like to me. He’s better at Standard than Latin.

Continue reading “Dancing With the Stars, Week Two: Samba and Foxtrot”