"Dancing With the Stars" recaplet (Ep. 7.05): Will Lance and Lacey survive 41 minutes of filler?

 
Noah's Arc's Christian Vincent was among the men of Macy's Stars of Dance

Last night was Results Night on Dancing With The Stars, and it ran about 41 minutes out of its 44 too many.

As always, there was a lot of filler and contrived suspense, as viewers had to wait until the very end of the episode to find out who was eliminated. The 11 competing couples began next to each other on stage and were slowly whittled down. Fans of couple Lance Bass and Lacey Schwimmer were kept waiting in anticipation until the very end, as they were not revealed as safe until there were just four pairs left.

On Monday night the two took “fantastic risks” with their routine and were “thrilling to watch”, but were inarguably “untraditional” in style. Ultimately, though, their 7th place score of 20 from the Judges, combined with viewers’ votes from home, kept them in the competition.

While we were waiting to find out the results, the hour was at least filled with a number of (debatably) entertaining performances: Carmit Bachar (a former member of the Pussycat Dolls) and Jenna Dewan (of Step Up) danced with others in a Macy’s Stars of Dance routine, choreographed by Brian Friedman, and Jessica Simpson sang … twice.

Also, out of the 11 dance routines presented this week, the Judges chose to see NFL star Warren Sapp and partner Kym Johnson’s Paso Doble again, because, in Len Goodman’s words, it was full of “drama, artistry and entertainment”. Warren was tied for the top spot in Judge scores this week with Brooke Burke, who has been told she was “born to dance”. These two couples are seemingly Judge and fan favorites and will most likely be major competition for Lance in the weeks to come.

David Charvet
 

I’m glad they’ll be sticking around though, mostly so I’ll get to keep seeing David Charvet in the audience cheering on Brooke (it’d be even greater if he were shirtless and jogging on a beach, however).There was also a short piece on how Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli travel back and forth between Dancing With The Stars (shot in L.A.) and Strictly Come Dancing in London, England. In reference to the amount of time the two spend together, Len considers he and Bruno as “a great couple”… perhaps a bromance is on our hands this season (although I’d rather it be between Cody and Derek, no?).

They even did a segment on the Red Room backstage and how it is so “full of energy”. Apparently everything happens back there; the room “runs the gamut of emotions”. OK, let’s take a step back, folks: you’re on a celebrity reality show about dancing. I’m pretty sure the folks right now on Wall Street or in Washington can talk with  more authority about "the gamut of emotions" than you.

Let’s move onto the results...

The final two pairs standing were Kim Kardashian and Mark Ballas, along with Cloris Leachman and partner Corky Ballas. Cloris and Corky had received the lowest score of 15/30 from the Judges the night before. They were criticized for not using Cloris’ wit and humor to their advantage during the dance, but argued the routine was meant to be “powerful and dynamic”, not funny.

In the end however, it was Kim and Mark who were voted off… essentially for Kim’s lack of effort on the dance floor and just downright laziness. So there you have it. I’m just glad they didn’t stretch the show to a third episode again this week. There would have been probably a video segment with Tom Bergeron, cooking dinner at home with his folks.