Despite our attempts to avoid the news by watching glitzy spangled dancers twirl around to pop song interpolations, the national health care crisis has officially invaded Dancing with the Stars. A sickly Mark danced with Melissa Joan Hart, Kelly Osbourne was rushed to the ER because she injured her foot at the end of the Crazy Train routine, and Derek had to drop out of competition for a week because of the flu (prompting a dozen mom-jokes about the dangers of dancing with his shirt off). Last night's show had a lot of consistency in scores and talent, and the chances of anyone but football star Michael Irvin getting voted off this week are pretty astronomically small, so the ailments of the cast are probably helpful to the show's producers in providing more drama to the competition. It won't start getting heated among the dancers until we move into double elimination next week.
Last night was the first time everyone danced together as a group simultaneously, and it was... odd. If you missed the surreal parade of wigs last night, watch the clip above, but a warning: you will hear a lot of "do the hustle!", over and over and over and over again, prompting you to whistle along. And they do it very well, with some lovely lifts and spins and snazzy costumes, but I never can quite shake the feeling of watching a reenactment of the '70s from Epcot's World of Tomorrow.
Tonight the professional dancers will be performing a tribute to Michael Jackson, which hopefully will be as good as the Patrick Swayze tribute from week one.
--A. RAYMOND JOHNSON
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