March 19, 2007: Are You Ready for Some Dancing?
And they're off! The 11 latest celebrities to put on their dancing shoes hit the ballroom live last night. It was step one of their quest for that fabulous, sparkling
Dancing with the Stars trophy. Throughout the show, the hosts pointed out that this is "the most remarkable cast ever" and that we were watching "history-making" television. It's good to know that they're keeping this fun, lighthearted dance show in perspective.
OK, while they may have overstated things a bit, there were some firsts last night that did indeed set it apart from past seasons: their tallest contestant ever, NBA star
Clyde Drexler, standing at 6-foot-7; their first contestant with an artificial limb,
Heather Mills; and their youngest competitor, professional dancer Julianne Hough, who is all of 18.
Another big difference from last season was that, overall, most of the celebrities participating this year are pretty well known. There's much less of the "Who's that?" factor in play this season, with the exception of maybe
Shandi Finnessey (unless I'm alone with my less-than-thorough knowledge of former beauty-pageant winners). I think having celebrities with name recognition really adds something to this show - it makes watching their performances more fun (e.g., look at Cliff Clavin dancing!).
One additional impressive change this season: no one was extremely awful right out of the gate. There were no
Tucker Carlson "let me just sit in a chair" moves; no
Master P "I'm just going to kind of walk and not wear the proper shoes" moves. Everyone really seemed to try. I know, you're thinking, "What about
Billy Ray Cyrus?" Well, someone does of course have to rank at the bottom of the pack, and his score of 13 deservedly reflects this. He didn't quite dance a cha-cha-cha as the judges pointed out, but I think
Hannah Montana's dad did put in some effort. Now, he needs to put in some more. A lot more. He wasn't completely stiff, and he showed an impressive ability to make fun of himself, dancing to his mullet song. Of course, that wig malfunction with Karina was unfortunate, though thankfully it didn't result in a national crisis of the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake level.
Speaking of JT, let's talk about his former fellow
'N Sync buddy,
Joey Fatone. He would be at the opposite end of the spectrum from Billy Ray, leading the scoreboard with his score of 24. Initially, I expected he would do fairly well in this competition, since he's no stranger to choreographed movements from his boy-band days. Then they showed his behind-the-scenes clip-fest, and he seemed like an out-of-shape class clown who wasn't taking practice seriously. Next thing you know, he's busting moves from
Saturday Night Fever out on the dance floor. Oh yeah, he can dance.
Close on his tail was the beautiful
Laila Ali. I had high expectations for this athlete going into this competition, and she did not disappoint. But she did surprise, with her oh-so-graceful movements. Also, I think she and Maksim had the best chemistry of the night. And not far behind her was http:/
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Apolo Anton Ohno. He closed the show on a high note, with the judges crowning him as the star with perhaps "the most potential" - they just warned him that he needs to clean up some of the technical elements.
In the middle of the pack, we have two tall, elegant ladies:
Paulina Porizkova and Shandi Finnessey. Paulina needs to get over her insecurities about feeling clumsy (she was quite graceful), and Shandi, like Apolo, needs to work on some technical elements. Oh, and she needs to stop bad-mouthing Russians (she shared how happy she was not to be paired with one of those mean Russian taskmasters, as she imitated them to be). Right behind these women was another elegant performer, Heather Mills. She was very candid about her leg in her practice footage, and her performance was good. Based on tabloid tales, she may not be the most popular star this season, but she is achieving her goal of serving as a role model for kids with prosthetic limbs.
Ranking just behind all of these ladies was last-minute replacement
John Ratzenberger, whom the judges referred to as "surprisingly good" - and he was. The senior member of this competition had some fancy footwork, and I think his skill level is above that of last season's token old guy,
Jerry Springer. He just has to avoid the "heel leads." On his heels was the least petite competitor ever, Clyde the Glide. A genuine sweetness seemed to shine through his performance, and the judges gave him some good advice about shedding his shy dance moves and instead embracing his size and expanding his moves on the ballroom floor.
Near the bottom of the scoreboard, there was
Leeza Gibbons, whose dancing was a little stiff. But, no worries, the always-smiling Leeza still managed to put a positive spin on things in her backstage interview. And at the very bottom was Billy Ray, whom I've already discussed. And no worries for him this week either, because this was a non-elimination week. I'm not a big fan of this tactic - we've waited several months for this show to come back on the air, so let's get things moving! But no, this show would rather proceed slowly and give all the stars one more week to improve (it's still gonna hurt someone's ego to be the first one out, whether it's this week or next week). These scores will be totaled with next week's, so the voting and judges' scores still matter. Just like this show matters - it's "history-making" television after all! Until next week....
