It's time to play the music ... It's time to light the lights ... It's time for freestyle dances on the 'Dancing' finals tonight.

Yes, that's the theme from 'The Muppets,' slightly altered for this joyous occasion. That's how happy tonight's freestyle dances made me. Seriously. We all know by now that the "Judges' Choice" routines are super boring -- and not all that important in the end -- but the crazy-fantastic free-for-all freestyles? Now that's what we've been waiting for all season, and it was night of surprises on 'Dancing With the Stars.' I don't think anyone could have guessed that Rob Kardashian would be on top of the leaderboard tonight or that Ricki Lake and Derek Hough would underwhelm in the finals.

But the most surprising/fantastic/heart-pounding moment of the night belonged to J.R. Martinez and Karina Smirnoff. The hip-shaking pair stunned the crowd, the judges and themselves with their daring routine -- and it was clearly the best routine of the night, if not one of the best routines the show has ever seen.

For eight seasons, Derek Hough has been the golden boy of 'Dancing With the Stars.' He has won the coveted Mirror Ball trophy all three times he's made it to the finals, and many believe that his work with celebrity partner Ricki Lake this season on the newly redone dance floor will earn him a fourth.

You might be surprised to know, then, that he's not especially worried about extending his perfect record. "Previous seasons, I've definitely felt the pressure to win, like it was mine to lose and, luckily, I won, but this season I don't feel that sort of pressure," Hough tells AOL TV. "I really like everyone that's in the final, and I think whoever wins totally deserves it."

With the grand finale of Season 13 looming (Mon., Nov. 21 at 8PM ET), AOL TV caught up with Hough to talk about his freestyle finale plans, the possibility of new judges and his laid-back new attitude -- one that apparently doesn't prevent him from throwing a few friendly jabs at fellow pro Karina Smirnoff.

This season of 'Dancing With the Stars' has had more than the usual amount of controversy, and a lot of it has come courtesy of clearly exasperated pro dancer -- and resident bad boy -- Maksim Chmerkovskiy. He's seemed dangerously close to boiling point all season and last week capped off an on-air altercation with judge Carrie Ann Inaba by dropping the f-bomb when talking about her to reporters.

Although Maks and partner Hope Solo's bad-tempered and uneven run on the show has come to an end, they're still due to perform on Tuesday night's live finale when each of this season's 12 couples returns to the dance floor for a special performance. But will they show up? After their elimination Maks and Hope were conspicuously absent from the post-show press lineup, and he rattled fans by writing in his blog: "What's next for me? I have no immediate plans at the moment. I'm not even sure if we're going to be at the finale!"

ABC has announced its 2012 midseason schedule, and one wine-soaked comedy is curiously missing from the list. 'Cougar Town,' despite a planned cameo offensive, is nowhere to be found. However, an ABC source has told TV Line that it will be back "sometime in the spring."

Also missing: 'Don't Trust the B---- in Apt. 23,' the new comedy that was set to be paired with 'Cougar Town.' The only new comedy to get a premiere date is 'Work It,' the network's cross-dressing sitcom that's already been critically panned.

This season of 'Dancing With the Stars' has its share of controversy. We've had Nipplegate, injuries, accusations of nepotism, dancers feuding with judges, dancers feuding with each other ... Now it's been reported that the strain of last night's semi-finals elimination all proved to be just too much for one dancer.

Each week the dancers go backstage and chat to reporters on the post-show press line, but last night one couple was conspicuously absent. According to E! Online, one half of the eliminated couple "was so upset about [their] elimination from the competition that she was unable to hold it together for interviews."

!!SPOILER ALERT!! If you don't know want to know who was eliminated last night, you might want to stop reading right about now.

The most bittersweet elimination of the season took place on 'Dancing With the Stars' (Tue., 9PM ET on ABC). To come one week shy of the finale is absolutely brutal, but each of the remaining contestants was all smiles. Simply making it this far is quite an achievement, and all four have proven themselves talented and worthy of their place.

!!SPOILER ALERT!!

This week Hope Solo struggled the most with the judges, but J.R. Martinez wasn't so far ahead on points that a surge of public support couldn't save her. Rob Kardashian and Ricki Lake were probably feeling pretty safe, but we've seen bigger surprises in the past.

Chaz Bono said he was told going on 'Dancing With the Stars' would be a life-changing experience, and he told Rosie O'Donnell that it absolutely was on 'The Rosie Show' (Weeknights, 7PM ET on OWN).

He also said that it was the hardest job on television, except maybe for 'Survivor.' "Nobody can imagine how difficult it is," he said. "The stress of getting on live television in front of 17 million viewers."

When O'Donnell mentioned that she gets asked every year to participate, and every year refuses, Bono said, "I would tell you to do it, actually."

After tonight, I'm not sure the 'Dancing With the Stars' judges want Maks to continue on this season -- or any other season. Things got pretty awkward during the judges' critiques of Hope Solo and Maks' sexy-but-clumsy Argentine tango. When Carrie Ann started to criticize their sloppy lifts, she called out Maks for smiling.

"That's fine, Maks, you can go ahead and keep smiling," she said, thinking that the professional looked a little too smug for her liking. Maks looked visibly stunned. I was pretty stunned too. I'm still not sure what she meant. Was he smiling inappropriately?

Well, this didn't exactly go over well with Hope, who, after weeks of tension, exploded. "Maks was smiling because we should be smiling," the soccer star told Brooke Burke. "So Carrie Ann, thank you, Maks was smiling. This is my partner. Finally, we're happy!" Maks tried to stop his partner from making his previous mistake, but the damage was already done.

Unfortunately, for Hope, Carrie Ann wasn't smiling when she gave the pair an 8.

Rob Kardashian isn't letting big sister Kim Kardashian's divorce drama get in the way of his dancing, says his 'Dancing With the Stars' partner, Cheryl Burke. Instead, he's focused on making it to the finals, a feat he never thought possible back in week one.

"He's gained so much confidence in himself," Burke tells AOL TV. "He's not even the same guy that he was in week one, and he's just proved to everybody that he is really talented."

Now, Kardashian is one of four celebrities vying for the Mirror Ball trophy and eternal ballroom glory, but he's not letting the pressure get to him. "He likes to keep everything light," says Burke. "It's just a show, not a real competition."

With the semi-finals kicking off this week (Mon., Nov. 14 at 8PM ET), AOL TV chatted with Burke about Kardashian's improvement, the judges' harsh criticisms and her close friendship with the Kardashian family.

It was a very special Veterans Day for U.S. Army veteran J.R. Martinez. The 'Dancing With the Stars' frontrunner took some time out of his hectic training schedule to spend the day with a few lucky vets. With the help of his 'DWTS' pro partner, Karina Smirnoff, Martinez honored his fellow veterans with dance lessons.

Joseph Gallagher, Linda Bates, Jennifer Boman, Daniel Lennon and Lorena Alvarez learned the cha cha cha, a fast-paced dance Martinez and Smirnoff have yet to take on in the competition.

"We think this would be very therapeutic for a lot of troops and a lot of families," Martinez said. "This might be something we'll think about doing later down the road."

Florence Henderson spent five weeks as a hoofer on 'Dancing With the Stars,' an experience she equated to her time on Broadway on 'The Rosie Show' (Weeknights, 7PM ET on OWN). It's a lot of hard work, and when the curtain goes up you either soar or you fall, but either way it's live.

"When they first asked you, did you say yes right away?" Rosie O'Donnell asked her.

Henderson admitted to being a huge fan of the show already by that point. "I was in the audience often," she said. "When they asked me ... I said, 'Oh yeah, thank you!'"

After being eliminated from 'Dancing With The Stars' this week, Nancy Grace and her partner Tristan MacManus came on 'The View' (weekdays, syndicated on ABC) to do the tango one last time.

Grace also took the opportunity to defend the duo's eight-week stay on the show. Sherri Shepherd brought up the fact that even although she has her haters, Grace did 'DWTS' while holding down a nightly show on HLN. "You mean I was the one with a job?" she huffed, still out of breath from the dance.

'Dancing With the Stars' is still a ratings champion, but the numbers have fallen. Is over-saturation to blame? Tom Bergeron has an idea.

"One season a year works very well for 'American Idol,'" Bergeron told TV Guide. "I certainly think that's one of the things that should be considered going forward. I would be looking at the spring season very carefully."

This week was the Final Five's last chance to impress the judges before next week's semifinals round on 'Dancing With the Stars' (Tue., 9PM ET on ABC). But with America helping to steer the decisions, only J.R. Martinez and Karina Smirnoff likely had a restful night's sleep after the season's first double perfect scores.

!!SPOILER ALERT!!

Nancy Grace and Tristan MacManus again scored the lowest overall total from the judges, just as they had last week. But whereas last week the gap between Grace and David Arquette was only three points, this week there were seven points separating her from the next lowest scorers, Rob Kardashian and Cheryl Burke.

Last night Nancy Grace had more on her mind than just her low scores on 'Dancing With the Stars.' Talking to reporters backstage afterward she was more preoccupied with the guilty verdict that had been handed down to Conrad Murray just a few hours before. And, being Nancy Grace, she had a zinger or two to let us know how she really feels about it.

"Well, once I found out it was a guilty verdict that's really all I needed to know," she told OnTheRedCarpet.com. "I only wish it had been murder one, because murder one deserves life behind bars, not four years."

Discussing Murray's future prospects, Grace told 'THR': "When he gets out, I got news for him ... God's gonna get him. He's gonna be mis-er-able. He can run but he can't hide. Hey! He and Casey Anthony can have a tea party in four years."