Celebs continue to trip over feet on ‘Dancing’2010-04-13
There's a natural expectation during any given season of "Dancing With the Stars" that you're going to see progress. People start out not knowing how to dance, and then they get better at dancing. That's the story viewers are supposed to be watching.
Not this season.
Four weeks into the competition, everyone is dancing almost exactly as they did at the beginning of the season. Consider this: Last season in the fourth week, seven out of 11 competitors remaining scored higher than a 21, and in "Dancing" parlance, its the score that means, "Eh, that was fine."
This season, with nine stars remaining and each of them getting two different scores this week — one technical and one for "performance" for their rumbas and tangos — only three of them managed to beat a 21 on both parts: perennial favorites Nicole Scherzinger and Evan Lysacek, along with Pamela Anderson, whose tendency to pooch out her lips and make as many sexy faces as possible won over the judges on an overpraised rumba.
Or try it this way: This season, over the first four weeks, the overall average judges' score only improved from a 19 to a 20.6. Last season, from the first week to the fourth, the average score on individual dances went from an 18.4 to a 22. The dancing was improving. Yes, that's partly because they started with a bigger cast and dumped weaker couples faster, but whatever the reason, there was more good dancing relative to the amount of not-so-good dancing.
This season, there's little improvement. In fact, one of the only people who could plausibly claim real improvement this week is Chad Ochocinco, a charming and appealing guy with a nice sense of music but not much technical ability. He doesn't dance particularly well, but has at least started standing up straight with his rumba. The other, believe it or not, is Kate Gosselin, who excelled this week by laying down a tango that was almost certainly her least eyeball-gouging performance so far. Hers is a "nowhere to go but up" kind of improvement, but at least it's something.
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