I constantly underestimate the effect of teenagers and other assorted young’ns in issues of mass-media voting. Darn those meddling kids. Joey was the consistently better dancer and the better all-around entertainer. I suppose the same could be said of Mario Lopez, as well … which just says all the more for the talent and teaching and choreography choices of Cheryl Burke and Julianne Hough. Sigh.

A little behind even the West Coast feed since I’m TiVoing it.

First up: Laila and Maks’s paso doble was about >this< much better than their last paso doble. I have to go by what Carrie Ann said about it being technically so much better, because I really don't see it--that is not Laila’s dance, and I really don’t think it’s even Maks’s. They both do better in the high-energy “drive” routines.

Next: Julianne and Apolo’s rumba. Bruno, SHUT UP ALREADY. I know I called him a “shrewd judge” in the past, but I think I was smoking something. He is far too enthusiastic at all times and far too generous with 10s. And far too blabbery with his mouth. It’s Len’s turn to speak–let him speak. And, surprise, once again I agree with Len. Julianne cannot help herself picking fast songs to go with slow dances. Too fast. Other than that I did agree a little with Bruno–that was far more chemistry than I’d seen out of those two all season. Apolo insisting in every early show that they’re like “brother and sister” didn’t really help the dance-floor vibe.

Here we go: Joey and Kym’s cha-cha-cha. Uhoh … speaking of too fast. Is that a real cha-cha? I don’t know that I like this new thing of having the judges pick which dance each couple needed the most work on and making them dance it in the finals. It’s too much like what my voice professors used to do to me at boards time–pick the song they think I don’t know. It doesn’t do them any favors with the fans voting on their score, and let’s face it–there’s not a dance future riding on whether they improved or not. Joey’s hips need help, and they shouldn’t still need help after ten weeks. What is that in the middle? Save it for the freestyle. Other bloggers have observed it before now: sometimes the music choices on this show simply suck hard. “Groove is In the Heart” for a cha-cha? Lame. Sorry, Joey. Love ya. Bring it in the freestyle.

Judges’ verdict: I’m vindicated! No cha-cha, too much freestyle. Sorry again, Joey. Len scores 8! Ouch!

Laila and Maks: Freestyle. I hope to God it’s not all The Snake and The Butterfly. Enough, already. Ohmigod, Maks, not you too with the Michael Jackson nonsense. Okay, this is looking good: not all one style of move, easy-going in music and movement, sexy enough without beeing too raunchy for Len, a little boxing motif going on, and comfy shoes for Laila’s knee problem. NO YOU DIDN’T: She did the Running Man. Aieee. Verdict: Cute and energetic without being wild. Oooh–Karina in the audience with Mario Lopez. Maks shirtless: Yes please.

Posting this now, will update through the rest of the freestyle …

Update: First freestyle scores: Carrie Ann’s giggling. Good sign. Okay, they wanted sophisticated, but please, are any of them going to do that in freestyle? Bruno: her strength is sex appeal and she should play more to that? I don’t know. She’s pretty well rounded. They should’ve taken the freestyle for what it was.

Update: Okay, tomorrow they’re going to dance their favorite dances. Good.

Aw, kids writing Laila letters–good for them and good for her thanking them. Damn, Len gives another 8: this is not last year’s finals.

Update: Julianne and Apolo freestyle. Why is she wearing hip-hop pants? Now sex appal is one of her very big strengths. I’m starting to hate the freestyle round: too many of them go straight to hip-hop, which really doesn’t do it for me to begin with, and ignores all the totally gorgeous dancing they’ve been rigorously taught. Joey, please don’t do us wrong like that.

Judges’ verdict: Len loves it. (!!!) Bruno says “original.” Um. Breaking to “Bust a Move” is original? I guess it is, for kids who were in diapers while I was listening to that in high school. Tens. Bleah.

Update: Emmitt, Drew, and Kelly tomorrow night. Whee, Emmitt!

Update: Ballroom clothes on Joey and Kym. Freestyle departure? Come on, Joey, knock our socks off.

Update: Okay, no departure. Ripped off the clothes and went into the … DISCO? YES. Joey, I have to say, is not looking like his usually flashy self, but the choreography and music (and Kym) are more or less making up for it. Awesome shot of the mirror ball wit them dancing disco. Nice.

Update: Bruno loved it. Carrie Ann loved it. Len … Good God, a Harry Potter analogy out of the mouth of Len, and Bruno shuts up long enough to let him get it out. The TV world is ending. Lifts: “Effortless.” “I wish we had more than tens to give.” Excellent.

Update: So who am I voting for? Apolo surged at the end, but no way I’m getting behind him with Laila and Joey to choose from. (Sorry, Julianne. You’re still the firecracker.)

I gotta go with Joey. It pains me a little for Laila; 1) watching the athletes really get into the dancing is part of the fun of this show; 2) the women really are at a disadvantage because it’s harder for them to look good doing this alongside professional male dancers than it is for the guys alongside professional women; 3) it almost seems like cheating for a guy from N*Sync.

But not enough like cheating. They put him on the show despite his entertainment/dance background, much like Mario Lopez, though I guess Mario had a little less dance experience, so all’s fair in love, war, and dancing. Joey gets my vote. But here’s the thing: they really are still neck and neck. I’ve no idea who’s going to take it. Knock ’em dead in the dancers’ choice round, Fatone.

Veronica Mars is cancelled. And apparently CW head Dawn Ostroff doesn’t know what the $#@& she’s doing:

12:47: The press conference is over. I tackle Dawn just as she tries to escape and I ask her to level with me. Is Veronica dead? “Veronica Mars is over, but we’re talking about something else. I don’t know if it’s going to be anything. I’m being honest with you. It could come back in some form, but I don’t know what form that would be.” She confirmed that the deadline to make a decision is “somewhere around” the June 15 date I referred to previously.

So “being honest” is the excuse for dangling uncomfirmed nonsense. Show creator Rob Thomas reacts:

No one has talked to me about a new, non-Veronica project. All my writers have been offered jobs elsewhere, and I believe they will now all accept these jobs. Very, very, very sad day around the VM offices.

“I assume that anything Dawn would be talking about in the realm of a Rob-Kristen project would involve a new from-scratch pilot as they don’t have me in a deal, and they’ll lose Kristen in a couple of weeks.”

I really don’t care if one of them is lying about whether anybody talked to Thomas about something new; it’s simply abysmally stupid of a head of network to talk about these uncoalesced potential things and put that out there to people who are invested in watching a TV show–and then she looks ten times as bad when the head of the show says he has no frackin’ idea what she’s talking about. Just say it’s over.

While I was out watching Waitress last night, Ian got booted from Dancing with the Stars. No surprise to anyone, really, including him, and kudos to him for having made it this far. I’m forced to retract what I said last week about Apolo–he now has the dance presence, the weight, that I said he lacked.

As for Ian–the guy just tries too hard. He looks phony to me all the time, as if he feels he has to act a certain way to fit in. His exuberance never looks like it bubbles up naturally, the way it does on Joey. As Carrie Ann said earlier in the competition, it doesn’t come from “a place of authenticity.” I really wanted to see what he’d be like when he broke through that shell, but alas it didn’t happen. Good luck, Ian.

Okay, here’s how the watching of Dancing with the Stars went last night in my house:

Somebody would dance. I would comment. Judges Carrie Ann and Bruno would say something, and then Len Goodman would say exactly what I said and soak up huge amounts of abuse from the audience and his fellow judges.

He was right that Apolo & Julianne’s tango was “a cacophany of noise and movement.” When it came on I said it was too fast, but Len’s word “hectic” described it far better. Julianne is good at pushing boundaries, and I’ve liked some of her stuff that Len didn’t, but not that. Here’s Apolo’s problem: no weight. He’s a little, light, young, fast guy–why not? That’s what he’s supposed to be on the speed track. It hasn’t translated well to dancing. Well enough, but not well, which I think is Len’s point with him every week. The two of them need to separate the sting from the wisdom of Len’s critique and use it a little. I’m on track to vote for Ian and Cheryl next week just to try to help ensure that Apolo goes home first. Who can even look at him with firecracker Julianne on the floor? There are only a couple of occasions when he has really been able to hang with her–the rumba and the paso, and maybe the jive. I give him the props for last night’s paso–it’s a hugely difficult dance and he managed it with some aplomb.

Len was also right about Laila & Maks’s choreography, no matter whose idea it was, hers or his. I said at the time: “Her father in the audience, this huge occasion, and she’s lying down while Maks spins around for 30 seconds?” Ridiculous. Len’s right. Dance.

Let’s see, who else did Len bash? He’s going to be bashing Bruno in the teeth if the man doesn’t shut up and let him have his say. I like Bruno; he’s mainly a shrewd judge and hugely entertaining, but shut up already. I think Julianne’s appalled hyperventilating was more due to the two judges going at each other than to Len’s criticism, and I felt a bit bad for her.

Poor Ian. Foxtrot panned by all three judges and unable to melt the plastic persona even for the romantic rumba. He’s an actor, for goshsakes. Why can’t he pretend he wants Cheryl more than anything in the world and then let that show when he dances? For that matter, who wouldn’t want her while she’s dancing? She’s hotter than a biscuit. Wanting people was what they supposedly portray best on soaps like 90210. Use it, Ian, or go home before Apolo does.

P.S. What was the deal with Joey’s mambo? The music was awful. Horrible awful (as was Ian & Cheryl’s rumba to an entirely unromantic political hack tune). He stomped around far too flat-footed for somebody of his talent. I wonder if the mambo’s just not his dance.

P.P.S. Let’s see the judges dance. They’re all professionals, and I realize they might not want to show off any potential deterioration of their skills due to age and having moved on to choreography and teaching, but let’s see them do something non-demanding, like a waltz. The men could cut in on each other and whirl Carrie Ann around the floor for a few minutes. It’d be lovely.

Update: Joey and Kym in the bottom two? Looks on everybody’s faces indicated they were just as bewildered as I.

While I was gone, as I feared, my prediction for Dancing with the Stars’ top five went awry: John Ratzenberger and Edyta Sliwinska were bumped. Too bad. While you could put his dancing skills into a bag with Billy Ray Cyrus’s and take bets on which would fall out first, still, I liked his charm and gumption a little better than Billy Ray’s charm and constant hillbilly references. No matter–he’s sure to be gone tomorrow night.

I hope Apolo Anton Ohno’s attitude that judge Len Goodman is just looking for something to say when he says Ohno’s performance isn’t great is just an act. Goodman’s right–Ohno’s got the moves, but he remains a bit sloppy. His teenage fan base may keep him in next week, but it’ll be a close one between him and Ian Ziering, who is finally starting to shed his plastic persona just enough to make some progress.

Speaking of close ones, I have no prediction for the Laila Ali/Joey Fatone shootout that’s sure to wind up the season. They’re both fabulous, with no clear-cut distinction like the one between Mario Lopez’s excellent skills and Emmitt Smith’s charisma, charm, attitude, personality, and oh yeah, surprising depths of dance talent.

One thing’s absolutely clear from last week’s results show, however: Meat Loaf sounds awful these days. Awful.

Cancelled. Now let’s all dry our tears and go see Nathan Fillion in Waitress. Or if Fillion’s not your type, go see Keri Russell in … Waitress.

H/t Ace, his anti-Firefly, anti-Fillion trolls and the silly commenters who actually liked Drive notwithstanding. Ace says Captain Tightpants can’t catch a break, but really, I’m hoping he wasn’t shortsighted enough to think this show would be the break he absolutely must catch. It was bad without much chance of picking up.

Bye-bye, Heather Mills. You were plucky, but your insistence on doing tricks on your bad leg, including standing one-legged with the good leg up in the air, which unsurprisingly led you to a fall, made you seem a more ungainly dancer than you were.

Other couple in the red light: John Ratzenberger and his partner Edyta. If they go out next week I’m out one couple who were supposed to be in my top five. Oh well. As a record, 4-1 ain’t bad.

There is some justice in “reality” TV: Clyde “The Glide” Drexler is out of Dancing with the Stars. Well, I take that back: if there were justice he’d have been out three weeks ago. Both supermodel Paula Porizkova and Miss USA 2004 Shandi Finnessey had the potential to improve, whereas Clyde was a nonstarter. But his name recognition was higher with the audience. And he’s a man–the lack of true dance flair doesn’t show as egregiously on the men as on the women. Ah well. Sayonara, Clyde. Why did you even do the show to begin with? You clearly did not care about doing a good job, from day one. The night you told your partner you were more of a game guy than a practice guy, I heard the swish of air as thirty or so former Portland Trailblazers nodded emphatically.

Lisa Rinna appeared tonight previewing her Roxie Hart, which she will take to Broadway opposite her husband, Harry Hamlin, in June. Not bad, Lisa. Loosen up a bit and see if you can’t sing it a key higher. You sound growly.

Chicago is really keeping it all in the family–John O’Hurley, of Dancing’s first season, just ended his run as Billy Flynn. Between his run and Hamlin’s, the role will be picked up by (!) Joey Lawrence. Well, they can’t say they haven’t had good dance training.

I didn’t expect much out of Drive, the new Nathan Fillion-led, Tim Minear-written/produced “drama” on Fox. The premise–a secret, illegal, cross-country race, as the cast of tonight’s premiere kept reminding us in those exact words–seemed weak and the previews were not promising. Unfortunately my suppositions were correct. Though I love me some Fillion, he alone can’t rescue the show from insipid, repetitive dialogue, a sinister but meaningless premise, and weak costars.

Briefly, the main characters are all in the race for a reason–Tully (Fillion) because the race’s backers have kidnapped his wife, his partner because they kidnapped her when she was a child and she watched as her parents’ car, racing to reach her, was forced off the road and over the edge of a ravine, killing them both. Others’ reasons have yet to be revealed, but Tim Minear, sick imagination that he is, saw fit to include the one thing that turns me off any show faster than anything else: endangerment of an infant. We know that “Wendy Patrakas’s” husband was abusing her and that she escaped into the race, leaving her newborn in a safe-haven care facility. But previews for coming episodes show that somebody, one presumes the abusive husband, is zeroing in on the safehouse to get to the baby. My first thought is not that the race backers will do anything to help Wendy save her child. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I can tolerate the show long enough to find out.

Like reviewers have said of Studio 60, which by the way looks to have held its last after-party at this point, it’s just too hard to accept the premise as seriously as its characters do. Like most of the TV audience seems not to care if a comedy sketch show gets produced properly, I can’t make myself care about the race as such–it produces instead only a healthy portion of, ahem, road rage at the kidnapping of Tully’s wife and the endangering of Patrakas’s baby. Not to mention the killing of “Corinna’s” parents. Though there are a few indicators–a few–that the race backers have some humanity about them, still, they are putting the “contestants” through a rat race of their choosing. One supposes that we will eventually see that these people might have something up their sleeves that makes them worthy of being “punished” in this matter, a la Lost, but unlike that erstwhile trial/judgment drama, the show’s already made me angry enough not to care about the ultimate ends and altogether disinterested enough not to bother finding out for sure.

In a nutshell, if a show makes it that difficult to see how they’re going to make sense of it all, and that boring along the way (we really need four or five scenes per hour of the cars zipping in and out of traffic as they try to outdo each other?), it won’t be long before a lot of the audience stops trying. Even dedicated Firefly fans like me.

Minear as a writer really seems to have something of a split personality. I’ve seen him put together a really incredible show, and I’ve seen him put together some junk. Come on, Minear, where’s the guy who wrote “Out of Gas”? Get him back, fast. Because, with apologies likewise to Adam Baldwin, the guy who brought us The Inside never did it for me either.

I’m off for the weekend, so just a few thoughts until I return next week.

1) Dear Dr. Dobson, don’t you realize this kind of thing annoys even Christians? It’s not your business to pronounce on whether any other man is a Christian or not, and it’s far worse than arrogant for you to redefine “Christian” to mean “public figure who speaks openly about his faith.” If you want to see an outspoken Christian in the White House, say that. And then say whom you endorse. Say whom you won’t endorse because they’re not outspoken enough, but when you say they’re not Christian enough, you’ve crossed the line. Please get over yourself. Or, rather, pay attention to your own Christianity and let Mr. Fred Thompson take care of his, both public and private. Love, A Christian

2) Speaking of Mr. Fred Thompson, I think I love him.

3) In an internet whirlwind of headline-skimming and soundbite-grabbing, you may not have 45 minutes to watch this. If you don’t have 45, trust me: watch 20 or so. A taste:

The modern liberal will invariably side with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success. … They’re convinced that … the real cause of war, poverty, crime, and injustice must be found, can only be found, in the attempt to be right. See, if nobody ever thought they were right, what would we disagree about? If we didn’t disagree, surely we wouldn’t fight. If we didn’t fight, of course we wouldn’t go to war. Without war there’d be no poverty, without poverty there’d be no crime, without crime there’d be no injustice. It’s a utopian vision, and all that’s required to usher in this utopia is the rejection of all fact, reason, evidence, logic, truth, morality and decency.

Speaking truth to flower power.

4) Your Dancing with the Stars prediction: It’ll come down to Laila Ali and–yeah, I’m as surprised as you are–Joey Fatone, formerly of N’Sync. The girl can groove, and the boy can move. The rest of the top five will be John Ratzenburger, Ian Ziering (did his mother really name him Aye-in, or is that just a conceit he plastered over Ee-in?), and Apolo Anton Ohno. The women are always at a disadvantage on this show, because if a man gets the steps right and has a little charm, he’s good to go, but if a woman doesn’t have the fiery persona of the ballroom dancer, it’s instantly all too obvious. And this season the women just aren’t feeling it so far, so it’ll be all men in the final weeks–except, of course, Laila, who could win it all if she keeps going like she has been. Football hero can mambo; boxer can mambo.

5) Last but not least, thoughts and prayers for Tony Snow.

I don’t watch reality television. Don’t look at me that way–Dancing with the Stars is not reality TV, it’s a talent contest. And it doesn’t start till Monday.

Tonight when the TV came on, before I could get it flipped to my show, I saw about five minutes of the abomination that apparently is Wife Swap. I knew the show existed; I’d seen the promos. But this was unbelievable. A man and woman having a huge fight in front of the man’s children–the woman was the swap-in–while the children curled up miserably in the corners of the couches. Apparently the fight was over school–the woman was insisting that she homeschool them, the way she apparently does with her own children–and the man was protesting that she was “not going to mess with their futures.”

Look, I’m no enemy to homeschooling. I’d lean more towards it myself if I thought I had the patience and attention span. Her preferences are not the issue here. But a strange woman comes in to live as mother to your children and starts insisting on breaking up the kids’ settled routine and the school life they’re already living AND fights it out in a screaming match with their father? I’m sorry, but fuck that. Yeah, that’s what I said. Wouldn’t those kids’ mom flip if she saw what was going on back at the house? Their dad certainly was. The only valid point the woman had was this: “Why did you sign up?” One surmises that it’s part of the “game” to let the swap-in set some rules. But at the expense of the children’s peaceful home? They likely understand it’s for television, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to leave a mark.

Sure, I’ll say it again: Fuck that. Why would anybody sign up? You simply couldn’t pay me enough to turn my child over to somebody else, who had the goal of turning his life upside-down for the cameras, for a week or however long it is. Not even for a day. And judging by the houses they were in, they weren’t too much in need of whatever ABC is paying them. (Although, for all I know, the houses could’ve been provided by the show. Whatever.) So whether it’s greed or exposure that’s motivating them, any adult going on that show deserves whatever emotional hangover they get–but it looks to me like their kids are paying the price. Assholes.

FWIW: In the other house, with the homeschooled kids and the mother of the previous children, she was trying to get them to go to school. Mildly. Without raising her voice either to them or to the dad (although to be fair, the dad was the one doing most of the shouting in the other scenario, but it looked like he had plenty good reason). The dad was about to tell her he wasn’t going to make the children go back to school. In a measured tone of voice. Fine. Meanwhile, back in the first house, the swap-in is equating the importance of what she wants in this faux, for-camera situation with what the kids need and what their dad says they’ll have. Asshole!

Cross-posted at Electric Venom.

He visited the set. He totally sucks. And I can’t even read the post yet because I haven’t watched the episodes in question–still catching up after being sick. Ah well. I couldn’t resist reading the part about Mary McDonnell, though–apparently she is indeed as cool as she seems:

So impressed is she by my brother’s research capabilities, Mary will continue to pop out throughout the afternoon and evening to ask him for more information, including at least one more song (wondering whether “Bus Stop” was a Beatles song or a Hollies song– the latter, as we confirmed via the now-invaluable PDA).

Talking to Mary during these breaks, and watching her playful demeanor with the actors and crew, it’s easy to recognize her incredible charisma. She’s one of those rare women who walk into a room and make everyone, men and women, instantly laugh & smile. Oh, and she’s also beautiful– never a bad trait in an accomplished and talented actress.

I’ve loved her since I saw Sneakers. Nice to know she acts like a human being, not necessarily Hollywood being. Welp, more incentive to finish up the episodes in question so I can read and salivate over Dave’s post. But he still sucks. So say we all.

H/t Bryan at Hot Air.