Dancing with the Stars Season 23, Week 7 – LIVE BLOG!!

Court covering for Heidi this week, who is on vacay in Hawaii and currently 6 hours behind EST – so while those of us in the eastern time zone are settling in for DWTS, it’s only 2 PM in Maui, and Heidi’s probably posted up on the beach, on her 3rd or 4th mai tai 😛

Site rules in are effect – don’t hit refresh every 2 minutes, make sure you’re not posting one-liners, etc. Thank you. 🙂

Early predictions: team dances may end up closer than you think – source said that while Team Future may have the more talented dancers and Derek’s choreographic skill, both Derek & Val seemed pretty stumped by the music, and consequently seemed to spin their wheels for awhile before starting to choreograph the routine.  Team Past, however, seemed to hit the ground running, and got a lot more done on the first night and generally seemed more enthusiastic about their music and theme.  I’ll be interested to see who actually comes out on top. Team dance spoiler post HERE for those who need a refresher.

A little bit of a late-breaking spoiler for week 8: next week is instant face-offs, per Hinch on the local news (posted vid on my Twitter, too frazzled to upload here). Since there will be an odd number of couples left, I’m guessing whoever gets the high score in the individual dance round will likely be immune from elimination, leaving the remaining 6 couples to face-off in one of 3 different dances, with the winner of each face-off probably getting a couple additional points.  This should be very, very interesting – especially who gets immunity from even having to dance-off in the first place.  I’m already thinking it might be a way for TPTB to buy Jana a way into the semi-finals.

Fave costume: Terra’s fluffy pink ballgown.  Mo looks uncomfortable in her 80’s punk rock getup. WTF is Erin wearing??? A Picasso painting?

Cute dance from Laurie, but that felt like it took FOREVER to actually get into hold.  Might have to watch a second time, but frame seemed kind of bouncy, too.

Source is saying Team Past is actually going first in the team dance round. No, I don’t have an explanation.

Kinda surprised at the scores they gave Laurie – I thought they were all gonna pull out the 9’s.  Seems like the hammer might be dropping.

I don’t think that rumba was meant to be funny, but I’m cracking up 😛 I don’t know if it was the lighting or what, but it was making it look like Ryan had a beard drawn on with a brown Magic Marker. Not much hip action, but I was amused.  Anyone still wanna nitpick James’ rumba from next week after watching this?

Anyone else catch Len not-so-subtly shading Val’s tendency to just generally waste a bunch of time instead of actually getting down to business and dancing?

Very cute dance from Marilu, but it looks like she may have gotten a bit behind the beat a couple of times.  That song was FAST.

Catching my breath for a second, and I could have SWORN I heard Tom say earlier that there were 4 weeks left in the competition.  So…11 weeks, again?

I’m standing here in my living room, clapping like an idiot.  Calvin MURDERED that jive.  Didn’t waste time, footwork was fantastic, legs looked great, he sold it, and his topline was everything that Laurie was missing in her quickstep.  I want him as one of the last two standing. C’mon, 40…

I would have given that at least one 10, but I guess I KIND OF get why they gave it 9’s.  They’re pickier about the core ballroom & Latin dances than they are the “extra” dances.

Sorry, but Mo has just kinda become a drag for me to watch – the heavy conversations with Artem in rehearsal are just tired at this point.  Pretty big stumble in that tango…but I bet they give her a pretty kind score nonetheless.

Very cute foxtrot from Terra, and I’m back to being sold on her again – she seems to really thrive in dances where she can really sell a character: jive, samba, & foxtrot have all worked well for her.  Really hope I’m wrong about feeling a tad worried for her tonight…

34 is probably fair.  I better start paring down details, cause I’m gonna run out of sh*t to  say in the power rankings…

Still not sure what the big deal is about Jana. Not a whole lot of samba there, and what I saw struck me as stiff.

Hinch has a cute dance that suits him well.  Maybe not as explosive as Calvin’s, but fun nonetheless.  Sharna definitely limping, though.

I enjoyed Team Past thoroughly, but I’m sure some of the younger crowd will complain that it was “boring” and will favor Team Future.  I loved it simply because it was different – I don’t think we’ve ever had a team dance quite like it.

A score of 38 leaves a nice 2-point bubble for the judges to score Team Future higher, so they probably will.  Sigh. Not loving how complicated this set is looking, and Terra crying in rehearsal is just eating me up 🙁

Ok, granted, that was a very odd piece of music, and that kind of dictated the routine – but that was one of the strangest team dances we’ve seen in DWTS history.  A bit too post-modern, I’m afraid.

Jana & Gleb and Maureen & Artem in jeopardy.

Maureen & Artem eliminated.

Look for the power rankings sometime tomorrow. I’m beat.