With a week before the semifinals, the remaining five couples put it all out on the parquet Monday night, performing a ballroom number and a Latin dance featuring a 15-second solo performed by each contestant.
The night kicked off with Cody Linley and his partner Edyta Sliwinska performing the foxtrot. Call it the night the Hannah Montana star went from boy to man. “I was pleasantly surprised. I thought you came out and did a top-notch job. Well done,” said head judge Len Goodman. Bruno Tonioli seconded that opinion, saying, “Your most grown-up performance to date.” The judges may have spoken a little too soon. Linley reverted back to gawky, awkward teenager during his second number, the mambo. He hopped, jumped, wiggled and ended his number splayed across the judges’ table. He got an A for effort, but Tonioli pointed out the dance was “a little spasmodic at times.”
Brooke Burke and partner Derek Hough were the next couple to hit the dancefloor. Their tango was so precise, viewers may have experience whiplash by the number of times the pair snapped their heads back and forth. “Stunning!” Tonioli exclaimed. “That is why you are the last woman standing,” Carrie Ann Inaba pointed out. Goodman was less impressed, telling the frontrunners, ” It was riddled with mistakes, Derek knows that.” But that didn’t stop the couple from scoring a 28 out of 30. They continued their streak with a “saucy” mambo that also earned top marks.
One-time fastest man Maurice Greene finally got a dance that could keep with him: the quickstep. Though Green claimed running track was nothing like mastering the circular-moving quickstep, he and partner Cheryl Burke seemed to have run circles around the dance and earned praise from all three judges. The night continued in Greene’s favor when his paso doble also got kudos from the judges.
Rebels Lance Bass and Lacey Schwimmer proved they could perform a gimmick-less foxtrot and do it well–really well. It even elicited this comment from Goodman: “You’re here on the wrong night. Extreme Makeover was yesterday. you’ve come out, you’ve cleaned up the act.” In their second dance, the samba, the couple went back to pushing the ballroom envelope–and came up a little short.
Perhaps the man who had the most work to do last night was Warren Sapp and his partner Kym Johnson, who landed at the bottom of the leader board last week with a lackluster foxtrot. The big man came out and attacked his tango with purpose, and it brought the crowd to their feet. The judges were equally impressed. “Watch out, James Bond!” cried Tonioli. Goodman quipped, “Last week was blocked, this week on top.” On top, indeed. The performance earned Sapp his first 10 of the season. The NFL-er continued the good vibrations with a joyful jive that once again brought the audience to its feet and closed out the night.
Here’s how the remaining five contestants stacked up after Monday’s dance:
• Cody & Edyta: 24 out of 30 for their foxtrot; 24 out of 30 for their mambo. Total: 48 out of 60
• Brooke & Derek: 28 out of 30 for their tango; 27 out of 30 for their mambo. Total: 55 out of 60
• Maurice & Cheryl: 24 out of 30 for their quickstep; 24 out of 30 for their paso doble. Total: 48 out of 60
• Lance & Lacey: 26 out of 30 for their foxtrot; 24 out of 30 for their samba. Total: 50 out of 60
• Warren & Kym: 28 out of 30 for their tango; 26 out of 30 for their jive. Total: 54 out of 60
Craig Sjodin/ABC
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