fracas

The Monday, October 22 show was rather eventful. Marie danced first and promptly fainted during the judges’ critique. Later on we saw more than one clip showing some tempers flaring between teacher and student. There was bickering again amongst the judges, and while thankfully, no mid-dance falls, we did learn that judge Carrie Anne Inaba came prepared to eagle eye the dancers’ feet for “lift violations.

The judges scores were handed out as follows:

Marie and Jonathan danced the Samba. Score: 21
Jane and Tony danced the Samba. Score: 26
Mark and Kym danced the Samba. Score: 21
Sabrina and Mark danced the Rhumba. Score: 28
Jennie and Derek danced the Samba. Score: 25
Helio and Julianne danced the Rhumba. Score: 23
Melanie and Maksim danced the Samba. Score: 29
Cameron and Edyta danced the Rhumba. Score: 26

Fracas Figures:

Marie and Jonathan danced fine, but the dance performance seemed a little slow for a Samba. Based on her post dance fainting spell, perhaps there was a medical reason for the sluggish performance. It was nice, but given her quality of other weekly performances from Marie, not enough to keep her from sharing one of the bottom spots this week. Perhaps her fans will vote in abundance to give her the chance to recover from whatever was ailing her this week? Worst case would be the network choosing to ask her to step down for health reasons. We’ll have to wait and see what the real reason was for the collapse.

Jane and Tony were again, lovely, but once other contestants had performed, it became clear that Jane’s performance was lacking in comparison. She does have lovely lines and is clearly the epitome of both grace and class, but indeed, there was no real “romance” in the dance and their choreography in comparison to the others’ seemed more about posing than dancing.

Mark and Kym danced the Samba a la I Dream of Jeannie. While it was entertaining and fun, it wasn’t much of a display of great dancing, as evidenced by the judges’ remarks. He was advised regarding his foot positioning by Len, and remarked Bruno, “You’re no Fred Astaire.” With the remaining contestants leaps ahead of Mark in skill, he may have trouble remaining in the competition unless he makes a greater efffort with Kym’s instruction. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy Mark. I’m just being realistic.

Sabrina and Mark seem to roll through on the she can do no wrong assumption. She does dance well, but I, from week to week, find that her bodily expressions just don’t quite fit the dance. Last week it was her facial expressions (which I note Helio received criticism for this week but she last week instead received a perfect score despite bizarre facial expression) and this week it’s just something that’s not quite right. She dances well, and yet, leaves me always feeling… shrug.

Jennie and Derek danced the Samba and because Jennie admitted to troubles with the shaking of her booty aspect to the dance, her bonus this week was lessons in… shaking her booty. Unfortunately, despite said lessons which many claimed to have done wonders, I felt her booty shaking was a little on the entertaining side, only in the genre of comedy as opposed to the desired. I admire her drive and her willingness, but think she tends to be scored higher than I as a viewer, would score her.

Helio and Julianne danced a Rhumba and while there were problems with timing perhaps, I thought the judges were harsh in both their comments and scores. Sabrina’s contorted looks of pain last week were given a perfect score. Bruno remarked that Helio appeared to be in pain during the dance. Fracas asks… is Sabrina’s “pain” worth a perfect score because she was portraying a bull and Helio’s because he was just being himself? Fracas asks… is a bull’s pain at being constantly deprived of the blankie more legitimate than a man’s pain at being teased by someone as drop-dead beautiful as Julianne? I think not. Perhaps Bruno just doesn’t understand Helio’s pain. Trust me. I bet it’s real. He should’ve been given a perfect score for that.

Melanie and Maksim. I have not liked much, nor cheered for them much, ’tis true, but let in not be said that Fracas cannot be fair and open-minded. I felt that despite their (once again) rehearsal tiffs, and her illness as well as jetting back and forth to London, they managed to come out with an impressive performance. Going back to the beginning when the talk was all about their rehearsal tiffs, they do seem to perform better when they fight. Perhaps for them, this is the key?

Cameron and Edyta also give Fracas pause to swallow a little crow. I have not been a Cameron fan. At all. This week though, I have to give him credit for a fine performance. He will likely never be my favorite, but he has at least given me a reason to consider him.

Who do I think will go home tomorrow?

Both Marie and Mark should be worried, but unless the network excuses Marie, I believe her collapse will actually gain her votes… perhaps enough to even keep her out of the bottom two as with Mark last week. I do think Mark may be the one to go, but this little nagging feeling has me wondering if perhaps Helio, in a bit of a judges’ score slump, had a large enough fan base to keep him out of the bottom two?

My bet is on Mark to go next, but then again, nothing would surprise me.

Previous reviews:

Week 4 Elimination Show
Week 4 Review
Week 3 Review
Week 2 Elimination Show
Week 2 Review
Week 1 Elimination Show
Season Premiere - Men’s Night
Season Premiere - Women’s Night