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Season 5, week 6, DWTS
- Author:
- Phillip Stephens (philtex44@aol.com)
- Date Published:
- October 29, 2007
Dancing With The Stars, Week 6, Season 5
This seemed to be another night for some of the celebs to "whine, whine, whine". Especially Sabrina Bryan and Jennie Garth. Interesting to note that folk like Marie Osmond - who could have used the fainting spell as an excuse - and Jane Seymour - who could use age, her mother's passing or depression over that fact as an excuse - were extremely positive about the challenges they faced.
The costumes were all quite nice except for that Pocahontas and Miles Standish thing that Edyta and Cameron had on. [Right, like dear old Miles would parade around the forest dancing with the Indian maid in a sleeveless outfit and soft "cheek hugging" trousers, displaying his "manliness" to the world as if he were a modern-day male dancer in a strip club] And I didn't care much for Marie Osmond's outfit which, in my opinion, made her look like the Matron from Transylvania instead of the matador's cape.
Sabrina Bryan and Mark Ballas did a Foxtrot (?) that was all Jazz and Razz-matazz, and she sure was busily and enthusiastically selling all that flash and trash. But ... did she actually dance a Foxtrot? To me, both she and Mark looked somewhat lost out there at times as they just did a lot of fast and faster moves that had very little relation to Foxtrot as a dance. Neither of them has any real control over the slow actions that are occasionally needed to provide depth and contrast in this dance. And, instead of adding those types of moves, they try to "wow" everyone into accepting their "fantasticness" by doing contrasts between the fast and faster moves mentioned earlier. Their 25 point was about right, though I do think Carrie Ann was a bit too generous with her 9.
Jennie Garth and Derek Hough did a great routine that was full of good energy and that contained several neat "tricks" that were well-performed. She did miss an arm connection once and almost got on the 1 beat a couple of times but, otherwise, this was a "spot on" performance. My opinion of Jennie's dancing has risen steadily in the weeks since her fall and I do feel she could be a contender for the mirror ball trophy. I felt that Jennie "glowed" during this dance, so was not surprised to learn that it was her favorite. She deserved all 27 points received.
Jane Seymour and Tony Dovolani were scored far lower than I felt they deserved. Jane seemed to put her heart and soul into that Jive routine and did some fairly difficult moves with quite a bit of agility. Her personality was more lively than normal, she had a solid bounce action and was quite "in sync" with Tony most of the time. This Jive was a bit on the slow side, which caused it to be less "springy" than a "real" Jive, but I think it was appropriate for Jane's age. A major drawback was that her outfit was not as well thought out as it could be since it displayed the thinness of her legs and the shoes made her feet look big. Nevertheless, I think she danced very well and just wish that her age and ability would be taken into account and that the judges would quit trying to change her persona. It's almost as if they want to turn a silk purse into a sow's ear and I much prefer that elegant and refined silk purse. Jane's score of just 22 points was an injustice, in my books.
Cameron Mathison and Edyta show-lots-of-flesh Slawinska wore what I feel were crappy outfits for that Samba. Carrie Ann was way off base in saying that she "got" that they were going "tribal" and showing the primal passion of the Samba. Miles Standish and Pocahontas never even heard of Samba, so I'm sure they weren't volta-ing around the wig-wams in skimpy outfits showing their primitive tribal passions. Cameron displayed a lot of bad body lines, a rather sissy-looking butt, bad posture, bad bounce, bad feet bad leg actions and badly performed steps. Yet he got higher scores than Jane Seymour? His 25 points was right up there with Sabrina's? What's the deal on that? (Is this another ABC plot???)
Mel B and Maks C did a FABULOUS Rumba and I was so unprepared for finding out that they'd spent just 6 hours working on it! Mel had such control over her timing. And some of her lines were so well-developed that any dancer should be envious of her ability to present such high-caliber dancing after so little training. Overall, her leg, foot, arm and hip actions were so strong and solid that it just showed a WORLD of difference between the level of dancing Mel can produce when compared to Sabrina. Mel and Maks definitely deserved the 30 points awarded. If her dancing continues to improve as much as it has at this stage, I'm convinced that Mel should be the winner for this season.
Marie Osmond and Jonathan Roberts presented such a ho-hum Paso Doble that it left me wishing they had done something else. So slow and ploddy! That music literally BEGGED for some fast moves and syncopations to fill up the time between beats. There were a few good lines and Marie definitely gives strong facial expressions, but there is NO WAY that this routine was better than the Jive danced by Jane Seymour. I would not have given this but 21 points and was quite surprised when, after saying that it was under par, the judges awarded this performance a 23.
Helio Castroneves and Julianne Hough performed at a fantastic level that was on par with their earlier Mambo routine. It was nice to see Helio looking relaxed and as if he was truly enjoying putting on that playful little show. He really displayed some good body rhythms, nice arm moves and intricate timings. Unlike during the past couple of weeks where he seemed to be more mechanically going through the moves, this week he really danced the choreography. He certainly deserved the 28 points received for that routine and he has now restored my opinion that he could be a contender for that mirror ball trophy.
The group routine was high energy razzle-dazzle with lots of great moves. It was so busy that you could hardly evaluate the skills of the performers, but it was a lot of fun and was very entertaining.
Because of her low scores and smaller fan base, I'm sure Jane Seymour will get bumped from the show tonight. For sheer dance ability, she should remain a while longer and folk like Cameron and Marie should go home long before Jane. But, then, this is really more of a popularity contest than it is a true dance competition. And we must all just bite the bullet and accept that fact. Especially since they never do disclose exactly how many votes any one person gets. Even if they did, how could we tell if there was any tampering going on?
I often think the judges have been instructed to make comments geared at stirring up controversy to keep people more interested in the show. I also believe that the producers are quick to react to public sentiment about some things and "tweak" the results here and there to to see if what they do will get more people calling in, even if they just want to "fuss" about the way the show is run. After all - we're talking about Hollywood, where dreams become realities.
Ah, well, it's just show biz, right?
Happy Dancing
and remember
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