Episode Report Card Kim: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Paso Doble from THE FUTURE
By Kim | Season 9 | Episode 16 | Aired on 11.09.2009
Carrie Ann has to yell over the audience cheering, and she says that the samba was perfect and beyond belief. Len thinks Mya is on fire, and her hips were hypnotic. Len also appreciates that she did two great dances tonight with no gimmicks. Bruno loved how Mya channeled Diana Ross and he starts singing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" while Len and Carrie Ann just die laughing. Scores: Carrie Ann 10, Len 10, and Bruno 10! So deserved, and the first perfect score of the season.
Aaron is happy that they got the '90s since it's the only era that he remembers. Karina decides to incorporate some of Aaron's moves from performing as a kid. He tries to get her to do "the Rodeo" and gets way too excited about it, for such a dorky looking dance move. Boy, this could get ugly if Karina was too sick to stand up to Aaron's ridiculous ideas. And they're dancing to "Two Princes," which is not really what I think of when I think of the samba. Aaron is back to being a try-hard during this routine; it makes me uncomfortable to watch him because he's over-dancing the entire time. He also seems like he's marching in place instead of doing the samba, although the samba does poke through at times, and it's not bad. You certainly can't fault him for lack of energy, I'll give him that. There's not much about it that's '90s until the last eight bars or so, when they do a boy-band like segment that has nothing to do with the samba. The audience loved it even if I didn't, and it probably wasn't fair to make them do their routine right after Mya and Dmitry.
Len acknowledges that it was tough to follow Mya, but he loved how Aaron sold the routine. Bruno thinks it's difficult to merge '90s and the samba, but they did it with a lot of energy. Carrie Ann knows she gave them a hard time early on, but she thinks Aaron's tamed his energy. Really? Because I found it worse than ever. Scores: Carrie Ann 9, Len 9, and Bruno 9.
Joanna and Derek have the paso doble from THE FUTURE. So Derek starts acting like a robot, and Joanna gets annoyed, and I don't blame her. But I am looking forward to Derek getting creative with the choreography. Derek explains that their routine features them dancing side-by-side a lot, so if Joanna screws up, it will be really noticeable. So do they pull it off? Well, it's definitely different. They're dressed sort of like space traveler robots, and they move very stiffly, but because it's Derek, he also threw a lot of traditional paso moves in. It's missing the aggression of the paso; because they are robots, it's all done very unemotionally. It looks cool as hell, but I don't know how the judges will feel. It was a really difficult mixture to achieve, though and it really was a great accomplishment by Derek.