'Dancing': A Little Bit Country, a Lotta Bit 'Orange Sugar'

Gah. If you need a pom-pom sporting Richard Simmons to give you a pep talk on self-esteem, then you've either:

A) reached an unparalleled level of desperation to snare more votes; or
B) you're cynically working the woe-is-poor-insecure-me angle a little too hard; or
C) both.

Which is to say, let us not forget that Jennie Garth is an actress (or, as she says, an actress playing a dancer). So don't believe those crocodile tears! With the semifinals coming down the pike next week, the D-listers will do anything and everything to snare more votes.

So we had a mourning Marie working the wholesome schtick. We had her doing the little-bit-country routine -- gag -- dancing in a cowboy hat and boots while brother Donny stood in the audience, getting all choked up. (I'm really regretting that third-grade crush on him now.). And we had Marie telling her partner that she couldn't possibly be romantic and passionate with him because, well, he's married.

Right on cue, the cute young wife comes out to give Marie her permission to love up on her man. "Even if you accidentally kiss him during the dance, that will be OK," she tells Marie in a thick accent. Thus encouraged, Marie went on, in her rumba routine, to discover two things: One, that she's fully capable of faking passion, even with a married man. And second, that she has hips. Osmond hips, but hips nonetheless.

And what is up with Len? He's got a good 20 years on Marie, so why is he constantly dissing her age? Has he looked in the mirror? Checked his drivers' license?

Cameron, such the Ken Doll. (And about as charismatic, too.) After his Viennese waltz, Judge Len took one look at his plunging shirt and asked, "Why is your chest bare in a ballroom dance?" Um, to get votes? Did Len really need to ask that?

Should Cameron and Edyta choose to reprise their crushingly boring interpretation of "Brown Sugar," we'd like to suggest that the singers change the lyrics to something like, "Orange Sugar" or maybe "Orange Julius" in honor of Edyta's Day-Glo Mystic tan.

Helio's second dance, a quickstep performed in a bright yellow zoot suit, scored the night's only perfect "30." It was exciting, it was energetic, it was fun. Now that's dancing.

But no one brings it, night, after night, like Mel B does. I have a confession to make:

I'm a Mel B fan. Yeah, I know: she's crass, she's got questionable taste in men and has an unfortunate habit of hiking her costume out of her butt cheeks in full view of the camera. But she can dance. This wasn't her best night--hard to beat last week's Paso Doble/dominatrix affair. No matter. She really gets movement and music, and it's such a pleasure to watch.

I howled out loud when they brought in Mel's husband, Stephen I'm-not-really-a Belafonte, to give her some inspiration for her tango. Apparently, she wasn't serving up enough anger, so Stephen was enlisted to help her with some Method acting technique: "Think of something think of something that makes you upset," he told her, then started to list possible, innocuous offenses, such as leaving his dirty undies on the floor.

Not once did he mention the A-list gorilla in the room: Eddie Murphy.

-- Teresa Wiltz

By Michael Cavna |  November 13, 2007; 11:13 AM ET Dancing With the Stars
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