The first couple safe tonight is Evan and Anna. Len reviews the performances from last night. He says in any other season, Chad would be going on to the finals. I don’t know what he means by that considering Sabrina Ryan got an early elimination in another season and even with Pam going home before Chad, it has to do more with the fans than rate of improvement and dance ability. Evan and Anna dance the encore performance with their Paso Doble.
Tonight we are treated with background stories of the dancers, which I always enjoy because I find the dancers to be intriguing and celebrities in their own right. Maks is up first. He was born in the Ukraine and his father made the decision to come to America for more opportunities for his children Maks really focused on dance when he got here and he was very successful.
Sarah MacLaughlan sings her hit “Angel” and new single “Loving You Is Easy” after the commercial break. Damian Whitewood, Dmitry Chaplin, Lacey Schwimmer, and Kym Johnson are the pros for this segment.
Cheryl reviews her background. As a child, she was very shy to the point where people thought she was deaf. Her mom encouraged her dancing as a way for her to come out of her shell.
The Design-A-Dance segment is up next. They introduce the guy who designed the costumes and he looks like he is about to go to the bathroom in his seat. I have no idea why. Is he nervous? Is he mad because maybe they didn’t execute the design properly or maybe it’s because he designed the male costume in leather, including a sleeveless shirt and it’s Joey Fatone shoved into it with the all his weight gained back. I don’t know, but Joey dances the Tango with Melissa Rycroft to “I Wanna Rock & Roll All Night” by Kiss and there was not much I liked about it except they did a nice lift.
Next up is the College Dance Championship. From last week Purdue advances to compete with tonight’s winners. Tonight we have Rutgers competing against Utah Valley University. Rutgers goes first. They are a new team and I enjoyed them more than the two teams from last week including some cool choreography in the beginning. However they only get sevens from the judges for a total of 21 but the judges feel they showed a lot of promise.
Utah Valley University dances next and they dance like professionals. The judges enjoy this team and Len even says their spacing and lines were perfect. They get a 10,9,10 from the judges for a total of 29.
Next up is Anna telling us she was born in Russia and she had asthma from the air pollution. Dancing was a form of escape. Her family moved to the U.S. where she eventually met Jonathan. They clashed at first because of their approaches to dance but their feelings grew for one another and they got married.
The overproduced and minimally talented Miley Cyrus performs her single “Can’t Be Tamed.” Her hair-do comes undone 20 seconds into the performance, and looks like an unmade bed. The song is highly annoying and was hard to get out of my head for about 10 minutes afterward. I am okay now.
We learn about Derek next. We hear from Corky and Shirley Ballas who speak of Derek’s talent and his ability to get into trouble, but also get out of it. We are introduced to another one of his sisters besides Julianne and this girl is very pretty. He has four sisters total and they used to put makeup on him when he was a little kid.
We find out Nicole and Derek are safe so it is between Erin and Chad as we knew it would be. Chad and Cheryl leave as the 100th couple eliminated from the show.
Cheryl says nice things about Chad speaking of his humility and gentleness. They are going to continue to build on their friendship. We see past clips of them in rehearsal and performing. He says he will be back next season as a professional.
So next week is the final and I have no idea who I am going to vote for. Obviously it’s between Evan and Nicole. I really think Evan is an amazing dancer with a lot of grace on the dance floor. He has a wonderfully humble attitude and groundedness that I have enjoyed the whole season. We recently saw him in the Olympics win a gold so that is also fresh in our minds, but I think Nicole and Derek’s dances have brought on a whole new level of entertainment. Derek also brings a lot of fans with him. So, we’ll see.
