Dancing with the Stars Rock and Roll Night
Lauren Daigle
This week’s Dancing with the Stars brought lots of energy to the stage for Rock and Roll Night, as the stars delivered some of their best dances yet and surprising scores set the tone for a long night ahead of them.
Standout Performances:
A performance that truly stood out to me this week was Alix and Val’s Paso Doble to the song “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi. That dance was by far the best we have seen this season, it really showcased Alix’s improvement throughout her journey. With the top three couples all competing with a Paso Doble style dance, I can confidently say theirs was the best one.
I think that they were robbed from their perfect score especially considering that the guest judge was the one who gave them a nine. Another really good performance was Jordan and Ezra’s Jazz routine to “River Deep- Mountain High” by Ike and Tina Turner. This tribute to Tina Turner was amazing and I love seeing Jordan’s improvement. She has gotten so good and I hope that she makes it to the finals. Seeing the dynamic between Jordan and Ezra is so cute and I love their friendship they have built. I hope to see them improve even more by next week.
Guest Judge:
All I have to say is who chose Flava Flav to be a guest judge? I understand the connection for the Rock n Roll theme but he does not know anything about dance. It was comical watching him mess up the scores and hearing his comments as a judge. What really got me was the fact that he scored Andy and Alix’s dance the same score… Anyways, I hope that there will be better guest judges who actually have a background in dance!
Group dances:
The group dances featured this week were really cool and I loved seeing all of the partnerships work together to make something beautiful. “Team Chicago” was definitely my favorite but I don’t think they necessarily deserved a perfect score. It was very clean but it was missing its “wow” factor. “Team Kool” was really fun, however it definitely was not as good as Team Chicago. They focused on having fun which was definitely cool to watch. Overall, I think that each dance was creative in their own way while still showcasing all of the different partnerships.
Elimination:
The elimination this week was sad but deserved for being this far in the season. Danielle Fishel and her partner Pasha Pashkov were eliminated after scoring a 34 out of 40 dancing a contemporary to “Dream On” by Aerosmith. I do think that she needed to go, she was improving but only steadily, she just wasn’t on the same level for it being week eight.
I’m sad to see her go but I am glad she was able to have her time and learn about herself through dance. I only say this ignoring the fact that Andy Richter is still on, I really do not think he deserves to be there. I understand he has a big fanbase but he has constantly scored the worst scores every week and barely moves throughout his dances. Everyone acts like he is super old but Elaine is only 4 years younger than him and her dances have been phenomenal.
On top of that Elaine is going through an injury but has still performed great dances every week. Andy is not improving and it is definitely his time to go.
