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Dancing With The Stars Season 8

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RealityFreakWill:
Contestants Talk Strategy Backstage at 'Dancing With the Stars'


ET is behind the scenes with the contestants after week two of "Dancing With the Stars", find out how they felt about their performances and what they are planning to do to kick it up a notch in the weeks to come.

Julianne Hough tells ET about her plans to get Chuck Wicks more involved in their routine based on the judges' suggestions.


"The criticism is so harsh this year," Julianne says. "We're still fifth position which is still a good place to be, there's still room to grow. Next week they said they want to see more him dancing so I think I'm going to sit on a stool for the first half of the dance. I'm just gonna sit, he's going to dance and do his thing."

Rodeo star Ty Murray admits to some wear and tear from rehearsing but, talks to ET about his strategy with partner Chelsie Hightower.

"It's rough, it is a lot of hard work," Ty says. "I'm sore in a lot of places. My feet feel like every bone in them is broken. Me and Chelsie's strategy is to be the last two standing."

Watch the video to hear the stars' reactions to "Jackass" star Steve-O's injury, and be sure to tune into the "Dancing With the Stars" results show Tuesday night at 9 p.m. on ABC.

http://www.etonline.com/news/2009/03/71880/

RealityFreakWill:
Melissa's parents and boyfriend, Ty were in the audience last night cheering on for her...

apskip:
RealityFreakWill,

Nice job on your recap of last night's action. I will comment from an overall perspective. The first thing that jumps out at me is that the training regiimens are so difficult for this show that 2 women(Jewell and Nancy) are out, 1 man Steve-O) probably out and 2 more men (Steve with leg injuries and Gilles with a left shoulder injury) are. However it could be just the dynamics of pushing the envelope in practice to shien in competition. Steve O doing a front flip with a prior back injury and coming down on his mic pack is the height of the ridiculous. Tom quipped about the overall risks and asked Jewell if she has an extra crutch (that Steve-O can borrow).

Fortuantely, there are some teams that continue to lead the pack with their classy dancing. Tops on that list are Gilles/Cheryl, then Melissa/Tony and Shawn/Mark. They all did very well last week and this week. It looks to me that they are going to stay in front of the pack as it improves in future legs. It was also nice to see Ty get redemption with major improvement in dancing and Lawrence with his significant improvement.

The next question is who gets eliminated tonight? The 2 Steves are the prime candidates for the Dance-Off. Steve Wozniak has a lot of fans who are going to vote for him and not his dancing. Does Steve-O have such a following? It doesn't matter which one gets eliminated tonight as the other is likely to follow next week.

RealityFreakWill:
Gilles, Melissa look like ‘Dancing’ stars to beat
In week two, Steve-O and Woz both suffer new injuries


Injuries are fast becoming the theme of this season of “Dancing With The Stars,” and two new ones popped up this week. What didn’t pop up were new favorites, as many dancers improved, but the same strong performers from last week’s premiere continued to dominate.

The weaker of the last-minute replacements, former Hugh Hefner girlfriend Holly Madison, didn’t improve very much. Her quickstep looked, as judge Bruno Tonioli pointed out, like she was running to catch up with her partner, which brought to mind not so much elegance as tardiness. While she’s pleasant and game, Holly will suffer if she’s consistently a beat behind the music — a problem that’s perhaps more pronounced in the quickstep than in any other dance. Eighteen points gave Holly a total of 36 over two weeks.

David Alan Grier, who got in trouble last week for mugging like the comic he is, asked Kym Johnson to make this week's routine tougher so that he wouldn’t wind up standing there while she danced around. Unfortunately, when they performed, she still seemed to be doing the “wiggle around the uncoordinated celebrity” dance. The judges were hard on their slow salsa, bluntly pronouncing it pretty bad. David, clearly holding back frustration, scored 17 points, for a total of 36.

Last week, Denise Richards found herself on the receiving end of harsh criticism, in that she was stiff and looked nervous. During this week’s generically inoffensive quickstep, she still looked icily terrified, but perhaps slightly less so. Fortunately for her, the judges were kind and she received straight 7s.

Next up was Belinda Carlisle, whose waltz last week looked a bit ungainly. Unfortunately, her salsa was the same. It was more fun, but it is beginning to look like Belinda is simply one of those people who is not a dancer. When judge Carrie-Ann Inaba squirmed before flatly telling her the dance was “lacking in grace,” it was easy to sympathize with both of them, because the truth does, after all, hurt. Her 18 points this week, and 35 total, make her position tricky.

These boots were made for dancing?
The award for most improved was easy to hand out to rodeo champ Ty Murray, who had a disastrous first show and improved immensely this week, as if he’d shed a particularly uncomfortable pair of boots. He admitted that he forgot a good part of last week’s dance, but this week’s looked seamless. “I just don’t want to go out there and be horrible again,” he said during rehearsals, and he definitely wasn’t. He pulled 20 points for a total of 34 — still low on the scoreboard, but a full six points better than last week.

Do you remember being 17? One of the best signs that gymnast Shawn Johnson is a normally socialized teenager is that she found the idea of wiggling her hips for the salsa to be totally mortifying. Her dance was quite good, but the fact remains that a perfect salsa is about 50 percent dirty, and an appropriately socialized 17-year-old is no more than nine or 10 percent dirty, so she (fortunately) can’t do it precisely as a professional would. She earned straight 8s.

Although Steve Wozniak is another non-natural dancer, he was also much improved, despite a foot fracture. (“Uh … you’re crushing your foot,” the doctor told him.) He dropped a few steps on the Buddy Holly quickstep, which was very well conceptualized by his partner Karina Smirnoff. But all things considered, the 17 he earned this week — a four-point improvement — was a major sign of progress. He won’t win, but don’t be surprised if he has Jerry-Springer-like durability.

Country singer Chuck Wicks, confronted with the salsa, pronounced it too feminine for him. “Hip, hip, hip,” said his partner Julianne Hough, pointing out a move. “Like a girl?” he asked. While his attitude was tiresome, his salsa was mostly dull, the biggest question being whether they killed Big Bird to make Julianne’s pants. The judges found the dance aggressively ordinary, and they rightly faulted Chuck for letting girlfriend Julianne do all the work. He was lucky to escape with 20 points.

Last week was hard on NFL veteran Lawrence Taylor, but he was another who improved. He’s never going to be Emmitt Smith or Jason Taylor, but he has shed the aura of discomfort that lingers around guys with big frames as they get used to floating about. The judges were kind and noted his improvement, but he wound up with the same 20 points as the mostly criticized Chuck, reflecting perhaps the different expectations for musicians and football players.

At this point, it was revealed that only hours before the show, Steve-O fell on his microphone pack trying to do a flip, worsening an existing back injury and ending up in the hospital. In this situation, it turns out that viewers vote, and the judges score, based on tape of the dress rehearsal. The judges acknowledged the disadvantage of being judged on a rehearsal, but they still hated the routine, and complained to his partner Lacey that it wasn’t really a salsa. Carrie-Ann, in fact, seemingly blamed Lacey for throwing tricks into the dance that contributed to his injury. (Ouch.) A measly 14 points could mean big trouble, but it’s not clear yet whether he can return anyway.

Next up was the surprising Lil’ Kim, who sadly had nothing hilarious to say about prison this week. Still, her quickstep to “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” was charming and light — “vivacious and uplifting,” Bruno called it. It was particularly nice on this evening to see such a well-matched dance, where the celebrity did exactly half of the work. Judge Len Goodman thought it lacked refinement, but Lil’ Kim is a contender when it comes to quality, and her 23 points (for a total of 44) put her in a good position.

Melissa Rycroft of “The Bachelor” couldn’t close the show two weeks in a row (sadly for ABC), so she danced second-to-last this week. After an introduction designed to downplay her extensive dance training, it was time to actually see her do the salsa. Once again, she was very good — she’s a natural performer, still glowing (or is it gloating?) about her participation in the Stuff It, Jason Mesnick Commemorative Tour And Victory Lap. Len confessed to “gyrating on the seat” (!), and Bruno called Melissa's salsa “juicy.” She earned 26 points for a total of 49 over two weeks.

Last week’s highest score went to Gilles Marini, who obligingly took his shirt off during this week’s rehearsals, the better to feed his fan base. The judges loved his Superman-themed quickstep, and Carrie-Ann rather absurdly pronounced Marini and partner Cheryl Burke “the fan favorites,” apparently not counting the wild shrieks that greet everything Melissa does. But Gilles got one point better than Melissa again, for a total of 51 — that’s first place, in the judges’ hearts if not really in the audience’s.

Tomorrow night, the first couple goes home. Belinda Carlisle or Steve-O seem like the obvious choices, but Holly Madison and David Alan Grier are also possible. But the big news from the first two weeks is that this shows every sign of being a Melissa/Gilles slugfest to the finish.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29727619/page/2/

RealityFreakWill:
The Bachelor: Melissa Pays Back with Class



The Bachelor reality TV show as you all will recall ended in a very tacky way with Jason first picking Melissa Rycroft and then dumping her on national TV to profess his love for another, Molly.

Many have seen it all to be a major manipulation for ratings by the production staff of The Bachelor, but it 'matters not because at days end, Jason is dirt and Melissa is 'The Star' of 'Dancing with the Stars'.

Two weeks in a row Melissa and her partner have danced last or second last which has made audiences sit all the way through the show to see what they came to see, Melissa, the jilted one from The Bachelor.

For the premiere of Dancing with the Stars Melissa only had 2 days practice to get prepared to dance while the other celebrities had been officially practicing for a month.  Melissa came out and stunned the audience with the 2nd best performance of the night.

For the second episode of Dancing with the Stars, Melissa was better prepared and she came out dancing the salsa and my oh my what a performance!  It was the best performance of the night.

It is at this point we have to be very happy for Melissa Rycroft.  Getting dumped by The Bachelor Jason was not only the best thing that ever happened to her, but it also put her in a position where ABC for one reason or another opened the door for her to 'Dancing with the Stars'.  We can say right here and now Melissa will go on to a much more legitimate celebrity and probably a successful future while Jason and Molly will be forever doomed to the rain forests of the pacific north west in obscurity.

http://www.******.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3406:the-bachelor-mellisa-pays-back-with-class&catid=66:the-bachelor-2009&Itemid=59

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