emmitt smith

(S03E13) After no eliminations last week, everyone returns to dance again. The scores and votes from tonight will be added to those of last week for the elimination show tomorrow. And this week, to make it even tougher, everyone will perform twice. Things are getting serious on Dancing with the Stars. Well, except for Jerry.

And for those of you playing along at home, the real final result of Saragate? The Nielsen top 20 for last week finds DWTS at #2 and #4. Wow. To put that in perspective, Survivor was #20.

Our dear, dear friends over at AOL Television have an exclusive interview with Cheryl Burke. You're probably scratching your heads at this point, wondering who the heck Cheryl Burke is. Well, you may not know her by name, but you certainly know her by her moves, especially if you are fan of ABC's Dancing With the Stars. Over the last two seasons Cheryl has shimmied across the dance floor with celebrity performers. Last year she was paired with Drew Lachey and this time around she is partnered with Emmitt Smith.

In the interview, Cheryl breaks the news of an upcoming Dancing tour. While there is nothing confirmed as of yet, Burke says there will be at least six celebrities and their professional dance partners on tour. Additional dancers will be hired to fill spots in the two-hour show where the celebrities are not performing. On the subject of celebrity partners, Cheryl says she has had great luck with the people she has been paired with and let's us know what the differences are between Lachey and Smith (While Emmitt has more rhythm, dancing came easier to Drew, who had a musical background).

Also discussed during the interview is the recent flare-up between former Dancing contestant Shanna Moakler and Paris Hilton. For the unaware (or the uncaring), Hilton alleges Moakler attacked her at a L.A. nightclub after she found Paris with her estranged husband, Travis Barker of the band Blink 182. Burke says it wasn't true. In reality it was Stavros Niarchos, Hilton's ex, who pushed Moakler down some stairs and threatened to hit her. Got all of that? There will be a quiz later.

The full interview with Cheryl can be found at this link.

(S03E11) Really, the dragging out of the decision for what to do about Sara leaving is just stupid. The show is getting great ratings already. It doesn't need to jerk viewers around to get them to keep watching. It's a cheap gimmick. Teasing it before going to every commercial break, and pushing it to the last three minutes smacked of local news, and that's not a compliment.

The judges chose Mario & Karina for the encore. That was a good choice. They were clearly the best this week. And they do another great performance, with the exception of a mistake at the end when they get their hands all mixed up during their spins. Lionel Richie came out and performed All Night Long while Maksim, Tony, Edyta, and Karina did the Samba. Really cool performance. Lionel still sounds great, and that was an excellent song choice.

(S04E11) Well, this was the show everyone was waiting for. What would they do now that Sara Evans has quit the show? Apparently, add more filler. I haven't been timing them, but it seemed like the pre-dance packages were longer this week. But if you have to stretch to fill time, having the pros come out to do every style of dance on the show is a good way to do it. The show is about the celebrities, but the pros are what makes it go. And it's nice to get to see them do their thing every once in a while. They are a crazy talented bunch.

As to Sara, they teased it for 83 minutes before finally getting to Tom's interview. I didn't expect Tom to go all Ed Bradley on Sara asking about the divorce, the hard drive, etc. There wasn't anything covered that hasn't been in all the reports going around. She explained her side of everything well and you can't fault her for dropping out. What they didn't reveal is how the show will deal with Sara leaving early. We'll have to tune in tomorrow to find that out. For now, on with the show.

(S03E09) And we're back for week 5 of Voting With the Entertaining Stars. We've got 90 minutes of airtime to get out the numbers for voting, so why don't we kill the time by having our stars dance. Don't worry, the dancing doesn't have to factor into the voting at all. Really. Yes, I'm growing a little cynical with the scoring system for the show. I think it hurts what is otherwise a good show. And now the judges are just adding to that problem, but more on that later.

This week the stars are choosing between the samba and the rumba. With a couple notable exceptions, there has been some great improvement among the celebrities. It made for a pretty impressive show overall. My apologies for the lack of screencaps this week, my PVR ate the file. That said, on with the show.

(S03E07) Well, there was no chance I would miss this week's show. Dancingwithsara.com sent me not one, but two reminders to watch. With that in mind, I'm guessing that the SaraARMY will be on the phones in force again. After the crazy, rule-busting, week 3 and the shake-ups it entailed, I was curious to see how things would go down.

This week the dances are the Waltz and the Pasa Doble. That is an interesting combination because it forces the dancers to choose one of two very different directions. A couple of those choices surprised me. Nothing tragic came of it, but I guess we won't know for sure until the results show tomorrow. With that in mind, on with the show.