The year’s first shocker: The first celebrity to be safe was a surprise to no one: Gilles Marini. The second was Melissa Rycroft. Next to be safe was Shawn Johnson. So far, nothing to even raise an eyebrow. But when it was announced that it was not the low-scoring Ty Murray but the talented and substantially higher-scoring Lil’ Kim going home this week, the entire audience gasped. Ty, while very personable, is entirely out of his depth going up against Gilles and Melissa, while Lil’ Kim still had the potential to pull out some surprises. A disappointing result.
Pick one, any one: The Who Really Cares? Professional Dancer Search continued this week with Afton, Mayo, and Anna remaining. (Goodbye, Alec Mazo’s brother Genya.) This week, they were paired with former contestants Cody Linley, Lisa Rinna, and Maurice Greene respectively, to see how they would do training a real celebrity. Afton and Cody’s samba was just fine, Mayo seemed to have Lisa’s number from minute one in teaching her the quickstep, and Anna did her best to play the role of the strict teacher while working on the tango with Maurice. They were all fine. Separating raw celebrity talent from quality of the instructor is nearly impossible, and all showed they could make good teachers. Let’s move on.
Let’s try that again: The evening kicked off with Melissa and Tony Dovolani repeating last night’s samba — presumably, Melissa had added some double-sided tape since her near-wardrobe malfunction last night. (She could be heard stating that her costume had slipped, though she didn’t use quite those words, but just told Tony, “My boob came out.”)
Hooray for a classic: The night’s highlight was “DanceCenter,” a delightful bit they’ve done before with former “SportsCenter” anchor and terrible dancer Kenny Mayne, joined for the quasi-halftime show by former contestant Jerry Rice and judge Len Goodman. For some reason, “DanceCenter” is always twisted and brilliant, and this week was no exception. Kenny called Ty Murray the least likely dancer of the year, aside from “the big giant guy who invented computers.” (Poor Woz.) Also wonderful was the statistical breakdown of Lil’ Kim that listed her basics as “Height: Lil’. Weight: Lil’. Shoe Size: Lil’.” And then Shawn Johnson came up, listed as “Liller Than Lil’ Kim.” Frankly, there can never be enough “DanceCenter.”
Performances ahoy: Jamie Cullum made an appearance to sing “I Get A Kick Out Of You.” The professional quickstep that accompanied it was agreeable and even quicker in the step than usual, but it constituted a little more piano noodling than viewers expect from a show called “Dancing With The Stars.” Finally, yet another appearance by the Macy’s Stars Of Dance to wiggle to some Coldplay brought nothing of note but was performed on a giant Macy’s star, just in case you didn’t remember the product.
Linda Holmes is a frequent contributor to msnbc.com