All right, we’re back this week with an all-new Dancing with the Stars live blog. Since last Wednesday’s episode, which saw Willa Ford unfairly ousted, the big news has been the impending departure of Sara Evans. Sara filed for divorce from her husband last week and, after tonight, will be leaving Dancing with the Stars to attend to her personal life. We wish her the best. The interesting thing will be how ABC deals with Evans departure. Will they bring Willa Ford back? Will this week be a non-elimination week? Hopefully, we’ll find out tonight. Make sure to come back to this page at 8PM ET/5PM PT for the live blog. The updates come fast, so don’t forget to refresh!
8:00: The show starts and Bergeron tells us that Sara Evans is leaving Dancing with the Stars. We know why (she filed for divorce last week), but Bergeron tells us that Sara will explain the exact reason in a taped interview later in the show. Is it wrong to turn someone’s personal strife into a cliffhanger? 8:02: The stars are introduced and Emmitt Smith walks down the stairs wearing a pink undershirt. If anyone can make pink look manly, it’s Emmitt. 8:04: For the first time this season, the remaining five couples will all take the floor at the same time in a freestyle disco routine. A lot of potential storylines there. 8:05: I’ve never seen this before. All the non-celebrity dancers (i.e. the experts) come out and dance a variety of styles. My first impression: I’d rather see it with the celebrities. It’s too clean like this. I want flawed dancing! 8:07: Ooh. We get an Al Green cover of “Tired of Being Alone” to accompany the Rumba. You could dance the “shopping cart” to Al Green and it’d be sexy. 8:09: Mario Lopez will be dancing first tonight and he is wearing what looks to be a black karate outfit. Which is sweet. 8:10: Mario Lopez practices his latin dance with Desperate Houswife Eva Longoria, who looks ridiculously beautiful, as always. Damn you, Tony Parker. 8:14: Here’s Mario out to perform the Mambo. 8:16: That was, indisputably, the best routine of the season. I don’t care what anyone else says. AC Slater can dance! 8:17: Len loves it, then tries to critique an aspect of it, but Bruno interrupts it and excitedly babbles for a few seconds. Needless to say, Bruno loved it. Carrie loves it too. 8:18: Lionel Richie will be performing on the show tomorrow. Time to get in the way-back machine. 8:19: Two nines and a ten for a 28 out of 30. It should’ve been three tens. 8:25: Monique Coleman is next and will be performing the Samba. Monique asked for a solo part to the dance. Her partner agreed, but only if she choreographed it on her own. 8:27: Monique invited Tommy the Clown, creator of Krumping, to come in and help “loosen her up”. And now, they dance. 8:28: Wow! That was more than impressive. Definitely Monique’s best routine of the season. 8:29: Carrie Ann loves it. Len didn’t like it and neither, crazily, did Bruno. They say that their wasn’t enough traditional Samba moves in the routine. I couldn’t tell. 8:34: A nine from Carrie Ann and sevens from both Bruno and Len for a 23. 8:35: Joey Lawrence is up next. 8:37: Joey’s wife come to watch the practice and approve the moves. 8:38: Here they are to perform the Rumba. 8:39: Joey’s partner is wearing half a dress. Literally. 8:40: Let’s just say that my Grandma would not have approved of that routine. 8:41: Bruno liked the dance, Carrie Ann liked it okay, but Len really, really liked it. I thought it was okay. 8:45: Joey’s scores: Three eights for a 24. Seems fair to me. 8:47: Emmitt Smith is up next. I want Emmitt to win. He’s dancing the Jive tonight. Jive, as explained by his partner, is a very fast dance. She is worried that Emmitt will have trouble with the fast steps. To help him, his partner brings in some Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. C’mon. Emmitt has better footwork than the cheerleaders. He doesn’t need their help. 8:50: Is there any other way I can continue to praise Emmitt? He’s just such a lovable man. The judges love it, continually citing Emmitt’s joy while dancing. I agree. It’s just fun watching him dance. 8:52: Two eights and a nine for Emmitt, giving him a 25 out of 30. 8:53: Jerry Springer will be up after the break. 8:58: And we’re finally back. Jerry and partner will be perforiming the Paso Doble tonight. For those of you not knowledgable in the world of dance, the Paso Doble is the bullfighter dance. Jerry will be playing the role of the matador. Which should be fun. 9:00: Jerry’s partner takes Jerry to a bloodless bullfight to prepare. 9:01: Jerry begins the performance wielding a guitar. 9:03: We’ll give Jerry an A for effort for that dance. 9:04: Carrie Ann didn’t like the extreme gimmicky nature of the routine. Len doesn’t like it. Bruno calls tonight’s routine a “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. I think he’s saying that it wasn’y very good. 9:06: Jerry gets a 7, a 6, and a 5 from the judges for a 18. 9:07: After the commercial break, we’ll be seeing the freestyle disco routine. 9:10: We’re back from commercial and we get to watch everyone prepare for the group Disco routine. Jerry Springer shows up in the Travolta suit from Saturday Night Fever. 9:12: A couple of Disco specialists were brought in to help the celebrities out. 9:13: A mat is brought out for the couples to practice lifts, which have a strong possibility of resulting in injury. Jerry brings back “the sprinkler”. Emmitt claims that he’ll bring the funk. 9:14: Here it is, the group disco. 9:15: Emmitt takes center-stage first and he, obviously, dominates. 9:17: Both Joey and Mario do lame Michael Jackson imitations. Monique and Emmitt were the best. 9:19: We recap each couple’s routine and then go to commercial. We’ll get the Sara Evans interview when we get back. 9:24: Tom sits down with Sara for the interview. They talk about Sara filing for divorce. She says that she is completely against divorce, but she really had to, and I believe her. Last Tuesday, she got a report about files that were found on her husband’s computer. Apparently, these files contained a ton of pornography as well as pictures of her husband cheating on Sara with other women. 9:27: You’ve got to feel really bad for Sara. 9:28: Sara praises her fans and is genuinely upset to be leaving Dancing with the Stars. Tom brings in Sara’s dance partner, Tony. She says that she’ll come back for the finale. 9:30: Another solid episode of Dancing with the Stars. If America wants to eliminate the worst performer, they’ll send Jerry home. However, the voting has trended against this. Look for Monique to get undeservedly sent home. -Oscar Dahl, BuddyTV Senior Writer
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
