By Kim
This week, the stars have to do an individual dance AND a group dance! I am always rooting for the group dances to be a total disaster, but they have kind of turned into the Soul Train style of dancing, where each couple takes a turn in the spotlight and then there is about five seconds of actual group dance. So that's disappointing. But could still be a disaster. Let's hope!
Once the couples are announced and have made their way down the stairs, Brooke and Tom introduce the guest judge for the week: six-time Latin champion Donny Burns. He's rather... flamboyant. Then we get a short clip package about how awesome he is, including the fact that he was undefeated in competitive dance for twenty years. All of the professional dancers are in awe of him. Donny takes his seat beside Carrie Ann as the fourth judge. Tom asks him what he really thinks about the show, and Donny says that "nobody does show business like you Americans." Is that... a compliment? It seems kind of back-handed. Len says that he's known Donny for forty-five years, and knew he was one of the greats when Len first saw him as a ten-year-old. I would much rather they have a guest judge like this that I've never heard of but who is well-respected in the dance world, than some celebrity who knows nothing about ballroom dance. Well done so far, show.
The team dances are up first. Chelsea and Hines are the team captains, since they have the highest scores so far. Hines chose Maks and Kirstie first, then Chelsea chose Ralph and Karina. Hines chose Kendra and Louis (probably to get Louis more than Kendra, one would imagine) so Chelsea ended up with Romeo and Chelsie. Both Chelsea/ies on one team. Could be confusing.
Cut to rehearsals for Chelsea's team. Ralph points out that Chelsea and Romeo are both young and have done the cha cha before, so he feels left out. Looks like Karina takes over most of the choreography, but Mark seems like the taskmaster in rehearsals. Romeo tries to ask a question and Chelsie tries to shush him because tempers are high. That was weird. Although I guess if Chelsie had the routine down, she figured she could help Romeo in their rehearsals and not bog the group down.
Their cha cha is to "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga. Their opening formation is good; I don't see any obvious problems. Romeo and Chelsie do their solo turn first and it's quite good. He's improved a lot and has definitely learned to perform to the crowd. Ralph and Karina are and Ralph is still a bit overly intense to me, but at the end of their section he lets up a bit and looks better than he has in weeks. He just has to stop with that face. Mark and Chelsea finish it out, and Mark is overdancing even more than usual. He has a great partner; why does he need to pull focus like that? He even throws in a couple of Michael Jackson moves that don't fit the song or the dance, because he's an asshole. Their final group segment is good and the finish is amazing, but they haven't learned the Derek Hough lesson of group dances, which is that the crowd will go nuts if you all get in a line and do something down the floor in sync. Derek always added that to any of his group numbers and it always killed. The ending where Chelsie and Karina go flying across the floor and end up at opposite corners was pretty cool, though.