‘Dancing with the Stars’ Results: Who’s in the Semifinals?

Last night’s DWTS performance episode was certainly a dramatic one, particularly when Kellie’s hellfire-themed paso doble drew a rare seven-ten split from the judges. One performer who was utterly uncompelling, however, was Sean, as both of his high-concept routines wound up looking silly and falling flat. As the lowest scoring performer of the evening by a full six points, it seems highly unlikely that he’ll make it through to the next round — to be fair though, I don’t know how his public following compares to Ingo’s because I don’t really care about either of them. Give me operatic bombast every time.

Our live blog starts now:

The troop opening number is an anonymously glitzy routine set to Jessica Mauboy’s “Gotcha.” From there we move into our recap, and then on to our first results:

Safe:

Ingo and Kym

In Jeopardy:

Kellie and Derek

Suspense: time of death, 9:06 pm EDT. It’s a bit of a surprise to see Kellie in the bottom, but there are only so many top spots, and nobody seriously thinks she’s going home. See ya, Sean.

Zendaya, Val, and Gleb perform the encore, justifiably so. With the first perfect score of the season, their trio routine was an excellent showcase of how an extra person could really highlight the primary performer. I’m still in the bag for Kellie’s insane paso, but I have no objection to Zendaya’s success here.

Time for some more results:

Safe:

Zendaya and Val

In Jeopardy:

Jacoby and Karina

We will also be paying tribute to Inception tonight, apparently, as Derek brings in a rolling room straight out of the film’s third layer of reality.

Jason DeRulo is tonight’s musical guest, and while I’m not even remotely convinced that he’s actually singing, he certainly puts on a heck of a show, incorporating elements of break dance and Las Vegas stage magic.

We then get the results of the twitter dance picks: Kellie gets Flemenco, Ingo gets Charleston, Zendaya gets hip-hop, Sean gets disco, Aly gets Afro jazz, and Jacoby gets Lindy hop.

From there we have a profile of Ingo’s adorable young son Peanut, seen here hobnobbing with celebrities and driving his tiny car. What a little G.

Derek performs tonight’s gravity-defying Stars of Dance routine, taking a page from Gene Kelly and Chris Nolan in equal measure. The small room that he’s dancing in rotates while the camera follows, presenting the illusion of dancing on walls and ceilings and such. It’s a very fun puzzle of a number, as the viewer can either get swept up in the trick, or try to follow along with the the room’s movement.

Emili Sande is on hand to perform her new single “Next to Me” — well, new in the sense that it’s popular now, the album has been selling like hotcakes since February of last year. She doesn’t do hip-hop magic tricks like DeRulo, but she does write and perform good songs, which is my general preference for musicians.

Safe:

Aly and Mark

In Jeopardy:

Sean and Peta

Yes, yes, Sean’s going home. I’ll get started on the season in review slideshow.

Safe:

Kellie and Derek

And that means…

Sean Lowe is eliminated.

There it is.

Honestly, I did kind of like Sean; he’s a charming guy with a good sense of humor, but he just never managed to stand out as a top dancer. When Ingo stepped it up and Sean faltered, his elimination was inevitable. Ingo will doubtless fall to the same fate next week, and then we’ll have ourselves a pretty competitive top four.

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(Image courtesy of ABC)

Ted Kindig

Contributing Writer, BuddyTV