After dancing on feet that both had full stress fractures on Dancing With the StarsMonday night, former House Republican whip Tom DeLay was spared from elimination by voters. But in the end, the injuries forced him to withdraw from the contest, albeit reluctantly. Gritting through the pain before performing on Monday night, DeLay's tune was: "What's a little pain when you can party?" But on Tuesday, he announced he was leaving the party. "If you can't practice, you make a fool of yourself out here. And I don't want to do that to Cheryl," he said, referring to his partner, Cheryl Burke.
The killer of it all: if DeLay had performed next week, his dance would've been the Texas two-step. DANG, that smarts.
Even though DeLay pulled himself from the competition, the show still made an official elimination: Debi Mazar, whose ouster was a bit surprising, since she was fairly talented, and generally scored well among the judges. Sadly, the audience apparently never warmed to her.
This all came on the Cuban heels of Monday night's performance, which was a visit to Surrealsville. You had Donny Osmond passionately "kissing" judge Bruno Tonioli, host Samantha Harris telling Osmond he should've used "more tongue," Paula Abdul suggesting she and Carrie Ann Inaba make out, and Aaron Carter's tiny, gossamer lady-robe. Whew. And for the second week in a row, our dancing Texas contingent did not put its best foot forward. First of all, it should come as no surprise that the show kept teasing to Tom DeLay and his foot injuries, forcing a Will-he/Won't he two-step with the audience's attention. We just like to point out shamelessness when we sees it.
Doctors recommended that he refrain from dancing, but DeLay ignored them and cut a rug anyway. First, a note about he and Cheryl Burke's costumes. We get the whole patriotic thing, really. Him in red with an elephant, her in blue with a donkey, with Why Can't We Be Friends playing during their samba. Hahahaha, you're killing us. But really. Red sansabelt pants? Yeegads. Back to the dance: again, DeLay danced through the pain and proved more graceful than we'd imagine, but the samba unfortunately provided for more unwelcome butt waggling. Between that and the stress fractures, we were hoping the voting audience was merciful enough to send him back home to nurse feet both left and right. (They scored 15 out of 30 points)
Former Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin might have some rhythm and an electric smile, but that does not mean he's not a horrible ballroom dancer. But partner Anna Demidova's sluggish, unimaginative choreography has not helped him, either. His samba was dreadful: he scored a point lower than DeLay (14 of 30), dancing on two fractured feet. It should've been his turn instead of Mazar's.
A surprise on Tuesday: each week, the judges have been picking one exemplary couple to repeat their dance. This week's choice was an odd one: Ultimate Fighter Chuck Liddell, whose every dance looks like he's plowing across the floor, executing a rampage of terror on the entire auditorium. (We loved Bruno's remark that his dance looked like a "samba from Zombietown.") We agree that with his singular rampaging zombie style, he is interesting to watch, but as we plow along, Liddell should soon be prime for the chopping block.
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