Read the results of this week’s elimination: Dancing With The Stars 2012: week 2 results; Who went home?
SAN DIEGO, March 26, 2012 – After Season 14 of Dancing With The Stars started off with the highest scores and best dancing for any first night in the show’s history, it seemed impossible the celebrity contestants would be able to maintain such high standards into week two.
While some continued to impress the judges and the fans, others stumbled, and it wasn’t unexpected. What we don’t know until Tuesday night is who will be the first to go home without the Mirror Ball Trophy.
After having several weeks to practice their first dances, celebrities now had a week to learn one of two fast paced, demanding ballroom dance styles: either the quick step, or the jive. Both are much more difficult than the cha-cha or foxtrot the couples were assigned in week one.
We watched Martina Navratilova, Katherine Jenkins, Sherri Shepherd, Jack Wagner, Jaleel White and Gavin DeGraw all dance the jive. The jive should project lots of energy, and non-stop leg action including lots of kicks and flicks with the legs while maintaining perfect rhythm to the music.
The cast of Dancing With The Stars on the second week. Photo: ABC
The surprise here: Katherine Jenkins. The Welsh opera singer performed a lovely foxtrot full of grace in week one. Could she turn up the energy in week two? The answer was yes. Dancing with a casino theme to the song “Ain’t Nothing Wrong With That,” partner Mark Ballas told Jenkins to “move her naughty bits” for the jive and she took him to heart. Ballas called it the “Welsh Wiggle,” which became a trending term on Twitter during the show. Jenkins was energetic and perfectly sassy. Due to her musical background she never misses a beat. It was the dance of the night, and she is going to be one to watch as a possible finalist.
Sherri Shepherd drew the perfect song, “Proud Mary,” and she let her inner Tina Turner flag fly. No one enjoys themselves more in the ballroom than Shepherd, and she invites the crowd to join her in the fun. Never did gold fringe fly the way it did on Shepherd’s mini-dress. She looked great and she gave it all she had. The judges rewarded her energy and her effort. And her technique was quite good.
Jack Wagner, Jaleel White, and Gavin DeGraw all danced adequately, but they were all lacking projection to the audience, the “sizzle” factor that makes the ballroom audience leap to its feet after a performance. We didn’t see that for any of these three, but they probably danced well enough to survive to week three.
Maria Menounos and Derek Hough played the roles of “Bonnie and Clyde” complete with masks. The costumes were distracting and detracted from Hough’s excellent choreography, but not enough to keep them from coming back.
Then there was Martina Navratilova. From the awful dance costume she was wearing to forgetting steps in the beginning of the dance, it was like double-faulting and never really recovering. To her credit, Navratilova owned her terrible performance and said the only thing you can do is learn from it and move on. The moving on part of the equation is in big doubt, though. Unless AARP gets its members to vote for Navratilova, who is AARP’s fitness ambassador, she is going to be in danger.
The other half of the competitors danced the quick step: Melissa Gilbert, Maria Menounos, William Levy, Donald Driver, Gladys Knight, and Roshon Fegan.
Roshon Fegan and Chelsie Hightower step out smartly in week 2 of Dancing With The Stars. Photo: ABC
In the quickstep, couples perform an upbeat, cheerful dancd with continuous movement, long and flowing with no stops or pauses. Dancers have to maintain the movement and the footwork at the same time. It’s harder than it looks.
Smaller, more nimble and fleet footed dancers will have an advantage. The first couple to dance, Roshon Fagen and Chelsie Hightower, blasted out onto the stage with a charming, well-danced quick step. There isn’t a contestant more appealing and adorable than Disney actor Fagen and the judges rewarded his energy and attack.
William Levy wrapped up the show with the final dance of the night, and is currently tied for second place. Photo: ABC
Donald Driver and William Levy offered a more mature appeal and both channeled the energy and support of their many fans in the audience to dance lively, high-quality quick steps. Driver in particular was impressive. This is not an easy dance for someone tall, and he looked especially light on his feet. Levy admitted he felt uncomfortable doing the quick step and much prefers the Latin dances, but he was much better than average and he’ll only improve from dancing with Cheryl Burke, who has coached many partners to great improvement like Gilles Marini, Christian DelaFuente, and Rob Kardashian.
Gladys Knight did a perfectly fine quickstep although she seemed less assured than in her week one cha-cha. Given her age (67), she’s the best dancer over 60 who has ever performed on Dancing With The Stars. But the judges weren’t too impressed, and Len Goodman gave Knight a five, which was too harsh. Let’s hope Knight’s fans vote and giver her a chance to come back.
Melissa Gilbert was the disappointment of this group. She appears to be thinking too hard about remembering each step in the routine, and it makes her lag just the slightest behind the music. She isn’t connecting with the audience, and she’s stiff. If Gilbert makes it through, it’s because the fans voted for her partner, bad boy Maks Chmerkovskiy.
This season, the scores from week one and week two are added together for a single total score. These will be combined with the audience votes to determine who is safe, and who will be going home.
The scores in order (this week’s score first, plus last week’s score for the total)
Katherine Jenkins and Mark Ballas 26 + 26 = 52
Roshon Fegan and Chelsie Hightower 26 + 23 = 49
William Levy and Cheryl Burke 25 + 24 = 49
Jaleel White and Kym Johnson 22 + 26 = 48
Maria Menounos and Derek Hough 25 + 21 = 46
Sherri Shepherd and Val Chmerkovskiy 23 + 23 = 46
Donald Driver and Peta Murgatroyd 24 + 21 = 45
Jack Wagner and Anna Trebunskaya 21 + 23 = 44
Gladys Knight and Tristan McManus 19 + 23 = 42
Gavin McGraw and Karina Smirnoff 21 + 20 = 41
Melissa Gilbert and Maks Chmerkovskiy 20 + 20 = 40
Martina Navratilova and Tony Dovoloni 17 + 20 = 37
Who is going home? I predict it will be Melissa Gilbert, possibly Gavin McGraw. Although Martina Navratilova deserves to go home on the basis of her especially bad dancing in week two (although the bad costume is probably not her fault), she shows some promise and has enough fans to keep her on the show, especially if her friends at AARP get out the vote.
We find out the result of the voting which are added in a 50/50 percentage weight to the judges’ scores on Tuesday night. Performing live on the first results show of Season 14 is the award-wining country crossover band Sugarland, plus routines by the DWTS professional dance troupe.
“Dancing With the Stars” returns with the results show on Tuesday night, March 27, and 9 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Time, on the ABC Television Network.
Read more updates about Dancing With The Stars:
Dancing With The Stars 2012: Theme Week 3 Preview
Dancing With The Stars 2012: week 2 results; Who went home?
Gayle Lynn Falkenthal, APR, is President/Owner of the Falcon Valley Group in San Diego, California. Read more Media Migraine in the Communities at The Washington Times. Follow Gayle on Facebook and on Twitter @PRProSanDiego.
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