"Dancing with the Stars" - Week 2 Elimination, March 29th, 2011

"Dancing With the Stars" Week 2 Elimination

Only two weeks have gone by since the premiere of season 12 of Dancing With the Stars and we’ve already lost one of our couples. On Tuesday night, three couples were called out as those with the lowest scores: Wendy Williams with her partner Tony Dovolani, Mike Catherwood with partner Lacey Schwimmer, and Sugar Ray Leonard with partner Anna Trebunskaya. Who got the cut, and who got lucky?

Remember that on Dancing With the Stars, the results are a combination of the judges’ scores, the producers who want to keep the drama high, and the popular vote. This is very different from a real dance competition, where there are between 7 and 19 judges on the floor throughout the entire dance; all the couples dance on the floor at the same time, to the same song, and the judges grade the couples from 1st through 6th. In the end, the couple with the most number of 1st place marks wins, the couple with the most 1st and 2nd place marks gets 2nd, and so on and so forth. There is no popular vote, and there are no producers trying to keep viewership ratings high. So in a way, as corrupt as the judging can be in a traditional Ballroom competition, it is nowhere near as contrived as the judging on Dancing With the Stars.

That said, the one who finally got cut was Mike Catherwood. He had the lowest scores on both nights, and really in my opinion it was between him and Wendy Williams. He mentioned afterwards that he will not be dancing again. It’s just not his thing. Did he deserve it? I think so. As I said, it was between he and Wendy, and either one of them could have been cut without too much chagrin. Wendy might have gotten lucky with her popular vote. Either way, Mike deserves to go.

Wendy and Sugar Ray are going to have to pump up their game in order to stay in the race. Also in jeopardy is Kendra Wilkinson, who not only has a tough time with the whole dance thing, but can’t seem to keep from whining about everything that goes wrong, as well. Right before going on to dance her Quickstep with Louis, she was treated to the footage of her breaking down and crying about her lack of confidence and grace. It disturbed her so much that she wanted to walk away right then and there. Well, she managed to suck it up and get out on the floor, but the question remains: will she be able to pull herself together in future episodes? Or will her penchant for whining cause her to hang up her dancing shoes? We will have to stay tuned to find out!

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