After complaining that he'd received no 10s, and declaring, ''This is my week, I'm bringing home a 10,'' Cameron Mathison scored zero 10s. The sudsy daytime TV star's first dance, the Viennese waltz, had Bruno worked up into a thick lather of pectoral fantasies and ill-advised metaphors. Carrie Ann raved about Cameron's good work ''in hold,'' and Len ''grew to love it more and more,'' which is pretty much all you can ask from a waltz set to ''Hedwig's Theme,'' from Harry Potter. The waltz was quite tame and tasteful, though, compared with the couple's second effort, a ''cha-cha'' (sorry, no un-quote-marked chas detected) to ''Brown Sugar'' that probably no one focused too hard on because they were mesmerized by either Cameron's package or Edyta's dripping-leather faux-hippie getup. His suit would have looked much better in ''milk chocolate'' instead of the rather literal shade of ''brown sugar,'' but this way, we'll always have the memories. The judges still like Cameron, but their critiques have grown repetitive by now. He seems too wooden (ha!) in a Dance by Numbers sort of way, and he needs to work on his transitions. He also needs to not be tanner than his outfits.
Helio Castroneves got three professional dancers to coach him through a rough patch. Jennie Garth got Richard Simmons in a blue spangly tank top and striped short shorts, shakin' red pom-poms in addition to his groove thang. It was the first segment of the show, which meant, in my mind at least, that I could have dreamt this entire scenario during a brief pre-DWTS blackout. (They happen!) But no, this was for real. Anyway, Jennie, who is worth more than all the pearls in the ocean, regressed a little bit with this week's jive and mambo. She and Derek seemed to be dancing on different beats during the jive, and their fox-trot — which I found lovely — pleased the judges only in that they were surprised the competition's delicate flower hadn't crumbled into a pile of Richard Simmons-flavored ash after her first critique. Bruno came right out and said that Jennie's star power ''still hasn't happened'' for him, and that he wants her to ''dazzle.'' Jennie better keep her Dance Your Pants Off! videocassette around. She'll be Totally Tonin'!
Compared with the other four stars, Marie Osmond's in an entirely different category. She knows how to perform — which you may have gathered by now because it's the only positive feedback the judges can come up with — but there's simply not enough content in her dances to rival the others. Still, I enjoyed Marie's rumba with Jonathan. The black outfits looked great, there was an amusing stair-balancing trick that took like 20 seconds (fine by me), and we got to see Anna Tre-BUN-skaya again. That's plenty, right? Marie's line dance of a jive, though, was pretty embarrassing in that everyone will compare it to Sara Evans' season 3 hoedown, and Sara Evans was an even worse dancer than Marie Osmond. So that's just not right. But neither is the fact that Marie will likely remain in the competition. Her dad died, and she went on Oprah this week. 'Nuff said.
What do you think? Is Helio on the prowl? Is Marie safe from elimination? And who can benefit most from a private lesson with Len?
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