I don’t have a hard time believing what Hope Solo is saying, especially looking back at a series of questionable incidents with multiple partners that seem to suggest a pattern with Maks. Unfortunately, she has a somewhat unlikeable personality, which seems to make her a less sympathetic victim to some people (not me). I’ve always thought Maks was sexy in an arrogant, bad boy sort of way, but I am officially over him. Kirstie Alley’s defense of him reeks of desperation. She has good stage presence, but is not nearly as good of a dancer as she thinks she is. I predict that the producers will either help keep them on for the controversy, or help them to an early exit.
My fave is Gilles! He’s got the moves and the looks (yum!) and he seems to be better known than he was his first time on the show. Apolo is right up there for me too, but nothing will ever be as cute as he and Juliane were together.
Bristol - meh. She’ll probably get more votes than she deserves again. I would probably vote a lot more if I could vote against people!
Could they please fire Brooke and hire Carson to do the backstage interviews? There aren’t enough sequins to make up for her lackluster personality.
Great news! I’ve always wanted to see Louis partnered with someone that has a strong dance background. This should be the chance to finally see why Louis won all those international ballroom titles. Sabrina can handle Louis’ choreography.
Sabrina is from Season 5 Fall 2007. Helio is also from that season.
I hope Sabrina learned a lesson from her early elimination. Tone down the hip hop references. Mark even included hip hop moves in their dances. I think that cost her the mom & pop votes.
Season 13: JR Martinez, Rob Kardashian, Ricki Lake (new talk show)
Season 14: Donald Driver, Katherine Jenkins, William Levy
They probably would have liked to get Kristi and Donny back; both of them probably feel like they’ve proven their point. Jason and Warren both have other things to do, it being football season. Ricki also has a job. Brooke would be a fool to give up her cushy announcing job to compete again. Christian, Mya, Lance – none have major fan bases who would tune in to support again. Kelly, Rob — the producers only need one reality TV offspring, and the producers gave that spot to Bristol. People from season 14 probably didn’t want to turn around and do it again immediately — can’t blame them. That leaves JR, who might have made sense — popular, young, not particularly over-employed — but that’s the only real WTF I see on that list.
If they’re Bodog odds, I don’t think they’re “Vegas” odds.
Besides, it’s against the law for a Vegas (or anywhere else in Nevada, for that matter) sportsbook to take odds on who is going to win DWTS, although I am a little surprised that nobody has tried and then used the defense of “dancing is a sport.” Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody has tried it because they’re afraid that, since there is a voting element involved, it would be too easy to rig.
Just a warning - they changed the title, so my TiVo didn’t recognize the show and wouldn’t have recorded it. You might want to check yours if you had planned on watching it later.
(Seriously networks, DVR Season Passes work in your favor if the show stays with the same title. They work against you if you get creative and think it’s a cool idea to change the title of a show to reflect a new season or a new gimmick).
Glad to see that Emmitt hasn’t lost any footwork. I was worried because he’s been away from any athletics so long.
Drew and Sabrina, rounds out my favorite three. I like seeing the early seasons do so well. Too many people wrote them off because the show is harder now.
Hope Pamela goes this week. She’s missed a lot of practice doing promos for Playboy in Europe. It showed too.
It seemed like Drew and Anna may not get along. Just in that short rehearsal package I saw Drew draw in a deep breath a couple times. Like he was counting to ten and avoiding a confrontation.
If its that bad week 1 then what happens week 4? Anna seemed much ruder than usual.
Well, they’ve been practicing for 3 or 4 weeks, haven’t they? That’s enough time to really start getting on each other’s nerves. Lachey did come off a bit obnoxious.
Don’t have a clear favorite at the moment, although I was really happy to see Fatone and Rycroft back. I thought Emmitt was overscored by about a point, but footballers always seem to get a break from the judges. I simply could not see anything that could have earned him high score for the night.
I do like the adoption of half-points in the scoring; not really a factor tonight but I think it will become more important as the field thins out.
As far as first eliminations go, I’m pretty much with with Twickster; Pamela was the only one that was truly awful. I do agree with the judges that Bristol Palin has improved mightily. Too bad she’s still Bristol Palin. Also, if she gets axed, Mark Ballas goes with her. Two for one!
Pam was pretty bad, and I had high hopes for her, as she was decent Season 10 and had lots of potential.
Bristol Palin isn’t very good at all. She was pretty clumsy out there and still just so Bristol, more lazy than sharp. She’s telegraphing her movement, and its very unnatural.
Shawn was very precise but the girl has no personality.
Emmitt was fantastic, and that wasn’t expected since it’s been 6 years. Love Emmitt and his personality. He’s just so cool.
I thought Kelly Monaco had improved a lot over her season, and Val had a lot to do with it.
Gilles was strong as expected
Kirstie Alley just stunk and Maks’ crappy choreo did her no favors. Herky Jerky isn’t American Smooth Foxtrot
I thought the choreo for Apolo was hectic but a good effort from them.
I thought Helio needed more practice, but the choreo was no where near as charming as the Bewitched dance his first season.
I thought Joey and Kym came out strong and Joey just needs to keep building, as did Sabrina… it’s no secret that both of them had a lot of polish and both being in the Vegas show has upped the performance level.
Melissa was very good, but some of her connecting sequences where she did actual ballroom was a little shaky.
Drew had a case of the nerves tonight it seemed. He was perhaps the stiffest of the Foxtrots I’ve seen on line.
I didn’t get Shawn’s Fox Trot, but overall, I liked the dance
Sabrina still overdances, but it kind of works for the chacha
Helio is cannon fodder in this group, but he’s more or less pleasant
I had much higher hopes for Pamela - she didn’t do great in her season, but didn’t do anywhere near that badly.
Bristol looked better than in her season, but still not great. And Mark still hogs the camera and overdances her.
Drew was very, very stiff
And I was surprised by Emmitt, he seemed much better than in his season.
Well I found the results show of two hours of filler really really boring. I’m a die hard fan and I left half way through the re-hashing of dancing. The only things that were good for me were the Jason Gilkinson choreographed Pro Dance and subsequent Troop Dance.
Too bad Pam left so early, but it was far too ambitious to cast her when she had trouble sustaining a fan base in her season.
This really should only be a show of winners and finalists, they’re less intimidated.
A little shocking to see Drew Lachey in the bottom, he obviously needs fans because I am not convinced the partnership with Anna is a good one. But maybe it’s a little humble pie, since in his season he said he could have won with or without Cheryl Burke.
I’m pretty sure Pam and Bristol were cast as week 1 and 2 canon fodder.
Shoving a former season champion out the door week 1 would be embarrassing for the celebrity and the pro. Imagine Drew going home week 1. Cheryl would never let Anna live it down. “What did you do to my guy? He won with me teaching him.”
They said Gilles pulled a hamstring Monday night. I’m not sure he can dance through that pain. We’ll see, but I’m wondering if he has to withdraw.
He said last night he expected it to be better within a couple of days. Of course, “a couple of days” when competition starts at this level is a long time.
Poor Drew – how embarrassing to be in the bottom two. I actually kind of like him, though I thought his dance Monday was nothing to write home about – I’ll definitely vote for him next week (if he dances well, of course) since he apparently doesn’t have the same fan base as some of the others.
ETA: Poor Tristan, he got screwed. I hope they give him a good partner next season – when, BTW, he’ll automatically move up a couple of slots in seniority, since both Derek and Maks have announced this is their last season.