‘Dancing’ finds perfection, and plenty of filler

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And then there's George Hamilton, who seems like a nice guy. He's ready to poke fun at his own legend, game when it comes to learning routines, and full of the sort of pull-my-finger mischief that's fun in your own uncle and no one else's.

Despite his appeal, however, he is either the most uncoordinated man in America or the one with the least cartilage in his knees, because week in and week out, he does almost as little dancing as Master P used to. Don't misinterpret — George is trying. But he doesn't really dance the way the rest of the couples do.

(Note to his partner, Edyta, re: wardrobe: Carmen Miranda was popular a long time ago. Note to George: If your choreography is going to revolve around you pretending to conduct the orchestra, it's really important to know where the beat is.)

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Still, George danced a little this week. Not enough, and not as much as anyone else, but he reduced the time spent standing still. He's having a great time, and you can't fault him for that. Neither could the judges, who gave him straight 8s without even complimenting his dancing. Instead, they reveled in how much they "fell in love" or appreciated his "trick" of making himself seem to be participating. Cute a couple of weeks ago, this indulgence is looking more unfair as harder-working couples struggle to stay in.

Jerry Rice was robbed
Jerry Rice showed sharp improvement last week with a surprisingly nimble foxtrot. While the setup piece made it look like his hips were never going to get the samba, and while the first few beats didn't look promising, his routine ultimately took off nicely.

Jerry has an infectious flair, and when his football-playing body falls into a few beats of a truly divine groove, it's as close as the show gets to inspiring an out-loud cheer. Armed with the built-in advantage of a great song — "For Once In My Life," where others were stuck with tripe like "Le Freak" — Jerry deserved much better than the poor scores he got from the judges. The fact that he finished behind George, thanks to the empty-headed scoring practices of one Carrie-Ann Inaba, is a crying shame.

In last place: Tia Carrere. In the first week, she waltzed to "What A Wonderful World" dressed in G-rated scads of green velvet. The new mother has shown more skin since then, and she did a marvelously sexy tango a couple of weeks ago. But like Stacy, she hasn't always shown great facility with fast footwork, even stumbling a bit during last week's foxtrot.

Indeed, parts of Tia's samba were lovely, but it was slow, and the judges' low scores were fair. As judge Len Goodman pointed out, she seems more comfortable with ballroom dancing than with Latin dancing, and seemed slightly self-conscious about the shaking and wiggling the samba requires. Her partner Maksim also took a substantial risk with some unusual choreography, and at least with the judges, it didn't seem to pay off.

The dull "group salsa" was notable mostly in that the rehearsal footage for it showed Cheryl accidentally elbowing Drew in the face and giving him a bloody nose. Now we're getting somewhere!

The odds-on favorites for elimination seem to be Tia and Maksim, as their fan support has seemed low even in weeks where they've scored better. At least they outlasted Master P.

Linda Holmes is a writer in Bloomington, Minn.

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