Six weeks down, four to go…are you guys as shocked as I am that this season is more than halfway over??? Seems like only yesterday that Mike was pelvic thrusting & Irish jigging his way out the door…;-)
We’ve got 3 weeks of regular competition left, and then the finale week. The next few weeks are going to be crucial in helping to determine who makes it all the way to the finale and who doesn’t – and as we’ve seen, if someone has just one off-week, it can mean curtains for them during a season where there’s so many fan favorites. So what can we expect to see?
Each couple has 4 dances left to learn (a random combo of Latin & ballroom dances), as well as the team cha-cha next week and possibly the Argentine tango (I’ll get to that later). Starting next week, the remaining couples will have to start doing 2 dances per week , which is what usually separates the “men from the boys”, so to speak. Usually it’s one ballrom and one Latin per week, although I’m not sure how that’s going to work out since Ralph & Hines only have one Latin dance left to do. Lord knows this season is just wacky 🙂
Hines & Kym – remaining dances: jive, waltz, tango, foxtrot
A decent “mixed bag” left for Hines – I have a feeling he’ll do well in the slow waltz, foxtrot, and tango (since he seems to do well with slow, romantic dances and fast, aggressive ones), but I could see him struggling a bit with the jive, since he hasn’t really had a “silly” dance yet. Then again, I said the same thing about Warren not doing well with the jive, and his ended up being one of my favorites 🙂
Kirstie & Maks – remaining dances: paso doble, jive, Viennese waltz, tango
To quote Evaine earlier, I’m going to go ahead and point out the proverbial “elephant in the room” – I’m not sure how well Kirstie is going to handle the jive, and I have to wonder if they’re saving it for last in order to allow her to build up her stamina. Poor Kirstie still seemed incredibly winded 5 minutes after her samba the other night – I can’t imagine what she’s gonna be like after a jive! Of the remaining dances, I think it could definitely be her Achilles’ heel. She’ll probably have a lot of fun “sexing up” her tango & paso doble, and barring any additional shoe malfunctions, I think she’ll have a decent Viennese waltz, too.
Romeo & Chelsie – remaining dances: jive, samba, Viennese waltz, tango
Romeo has definitely proven that he excels more at the ballroom dances than the Latin ones, so I don’t anticipate him having any issues with the Viennese waltz or tango. He may not be as technically good at the jive, but I think he enjoyed being a bit cheeky in his foxtrot, so he’ll likely inject a lot of character into his jive to make up for any iffy technique. The samba? Oy. I always worry when a couple gets the samba later in the competition rather than earlier – since it’s such a technically hard dance, it could potentially prevent them from making it to the finale, if they’re up against couples with easier dances.
Ralph & Karina – remaining dances: cha-cha, Viennese waltz, tango, quickstep
Of all the remaining contestants, I think Ralph has the best group of dances heading into these last few weeks. He’s gotten 4 of the 5 Latin dances (which he tends to struggle with) out of the way already, and he actually gets a sort of “practice round” with the team cha-cha next week before he does it again on his own. And Ralph is VERY strong in the ballroom dances – after several “off” weeks, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him back at the top of the leaderboard with one of the ballroom dances above. As long as he & Karina can avoid any further mishaps, I would say he’s good for at least the semi final, and possibly the final, at this point.
Chelsea & Mark – remaining dances: rumba, paso doble, waltz, tango
Hmmm…Chelsea’s got 2 rather aggressive dances left: paso doble & tango. I’m just not sure how well she’s gonna be able to embody that, since she always seems to be smiling 🙂 No doubt she’s got the dance skills – let’s just hope Mark can give her some good, non-rule-breaking choreo for the dances she has left, because at this point, I don’t know that the judges are going to be so forgiving of “risk-taking” choreography. One ho-hum score from some disgruntled judges could mean the difference between staying & going.
Kendra & Louis – jive, paso doble, waltz, tango
Hehehe…oh boy. Kendra’s got her work cut out for her 🙂 Honestly, of the dances she has left – I’m not sure there’s any that she’s really going to do remarkably well at. She’s shown that she’s not exactly adept at (or fond of) the ballroom dances, and she only seems to do halfway well at Latin dances where she can “shake it”. No really good “shake it” dances left – and I could see her trying to bounce around in the jive, but it looking kinda awkward…with her ample bosom doing most of the bouncing instead. Luckily for us, I don’t think she’s going to be able to last through next week, so we likely won’t have to suffer through any of the potential awkwardness of her attempting more than one of these dances.
So what’s going on with the team cha-cha? It’s next week, and it looks like the teams are Hines, Kirstie, & Kendra vs. Romeo, Chelsea, & Ralph. I would say that youth & higher cha-cha scores tips the scales in favor of the Romeo-Chelsea-Ralph team, but I think the Hines-Kirstie-Kendra team has probably got the better choreographers. Could be a pretty even match-up…but we’ll save further discussion for Heidi’s “Who’s Dancing What?” post on Sunday 🙂 Maks tweeted something ambiguous last night about “In Your Arms”, which has got some people wondering if his team got Kylie Minogue’s “In Your Arms” as their song. I would say that everyone is also going to do one unlearned ballroom dance next week, but apparently Chelsea & Mark have already said they’re doing the paso doble and Romeo & Chelsie said they’ve got the samba, so who knows. And the wackiness of season 12 continues. *sigh*
What about the marathon dance? Sorry to disappoint, kids, but my spidey sense is telling me there probably isn’t going to be one this season. The marathon dance is usually done when 7 couples remain, which would have been this week, but it looks like the “Broadway” (WTF?) marathon that was planned at the beginning of the season was scrapped without explanation by TPTB. Why? Evaine & I theorize (and mind you, this is complete speculation on our parts, so take it with a grain of salt) that maybe they were waiting to see if Kirstie’s endurance increased during the season to see if she could handle a marathan dance. Judging from her breathlessness post-samba this week – I’d say she probably couldn’t. So the marathon dance was scrapped, and Hanson was mysteriously added to the roster of musical guests at the last minute to fill up the time that would have been allotted for the marathon dance. For those of you still holding out hope for one – there really isn’t much point in doing one with 5 people or less, so you might want to just save your enthusiasm for next season 😉
When are they gonna do the Argentine tango??? I haven’t heard anything official saying whether or not they’re going to do it this season, and if so, when they’re going to do it – but I think it would be a very dumb move of them to scrap one of the most popular dances with viewers. Looking at the dances that are left and the time left to do them in, it looks like they are still one dance short, if they’re going to have the couples doing 2 dances per week. Since no one has done the Argentine tango yet, it would make sense to me that they’d probably have everyone do it the same week – maybe in a relay or “smackdown” fashion, as they’ve done in seasons past, with everyone doing a short routine, one at a time, back-to-back, to the same song. Not exactly the intimate feel I like my Argentine tangos to have, but if it’s the only way I can take it, cool. Keep in mind this is completely just Courtney speculating – this is not the official “word” on the fate of the A. tango. So just in case they do ix-nay it…I wouldn’t get your hopes up.
Are they going to do the “Instant Dance” again? They said “yes”, at the beginning of the season, but then again, they also said “yes” about the marathon dance coming back…so once again, I’m not sure. It wouldn’t surprise me if they made one of the couples’ remaining dances an “instant” dance – most likely one of their remaining Latin dances – and if we’re basing it on historical data, it would probably be during week 8, as that is when it happened during season 11. That’s the best info I can give you…I’m sure we’ll hear more within the next week or so.
Alright, so there’s your overview of what you can expect (or not expect) during weeks 7-9. Who do you guys think has the edge heading into the last 3 weeks of the season? Who do you think could be in trouble? DISCUSS 🙂 And be sure to stay tuned later today for the usual post-elimination media featuring Chris & Cheryl (gotta give Vogue some time to compile ;-)), and further info on what dances we’re going to see next week in Heidi’s weekly “Who’s Dancing What?” post on Sunday! 😀
