Could this be Springer’s last ‘Dance’?

This was the week there should have been six couples left on “Dancing With The Stars” (ABC, Tuesdays/Wednesdays, 8 p.m. ET). After Willa Ford’s departure last week, however, there was a development that jolted fans of this generally frivolous piece of programming: country singer Sara Evans voluntarily quit the competition without being eliminated, following reports of a messy personal life and a highly public and apparently ugly pending divorce.

The show has not entirely explained how this will affect the proceedings. Willa was not invited back to keep everything on schedule. So, down one team from what had been planned, the show went forward on Tuesday with the five who are left.

Each celebrity did a different one of the usual ballroom or Latin dances, and then also participated in a group “disco freestyle.” Yes, really. A disco freestyle. It’s probably just as well that a vulnerable Sara did not try to stick around.

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Before the individual dances, things kicked off with a surprisingly good performance by some of the show’s professional dancers. Maksim, who sadly departed the competition last week along with Willa, returned for the exhibition looking like a million bucks, and Monique’s partner Louis was equally good. The professional dances can sometimes seem plodding and pointless, particularly when they collide with poorly chosen musical guests, but this actually was about dancing and started the show in high gear, which it badly needed after the odd pall that was cast by the announcement about Sara.

Mario hotdogs for the crowd
Then, the competitive dances started. Still looking like a ringer is Mario Lopez, who performed a safe but well-executed mambo. Not all of the choreography seemed inventive, and judge Len noticed that Mario and Karina sacrificed focus in favor of showing off. There’s always an element of the hotdog in everything Mario does, and it indeed seemed worse this week than usual. Nevertheless, the mambo pulled a 10 from Bruno, and Mario finished the evening in first place.

Monique Coleman finds herself in the unenviable position of being the only remaining woman in the competition. Monique and Louis performed a samba this week to the Jackson 5’s “ABC,” and their rehearsal footage revealed that Monique had made a fuss over wanting to dance a solo. Louis scared her by telling her it would not be choreographed by him, but would be performed “freestyle.”

Louis even brought in one Tommy the Clown, who developed krumping (a hip-hop dance), to educate Monique and loosen her up. Unfortunately, the resulting solo, once it hit the stage, didn’t work. It consisted primarily of Monique running around the stage by herself, and while she was trying to escape accusations that she’s dull and inhibited — Carrie-Ann’s favorite criticism of her — it fell flat. In fact, the entire samba looked uncoordinated, and Monique was emphatically not at her best, which was reflected in her scores.

Joey Lawrence and partner Edyta did a rumba, and rehearsal scenes revealed that they struggled with the heavy romance. Both seemed unable to stare hotly at each other without giggling, and Edyta eventually invited Joey’s wife to observe and approve, thinking it might break the tension.

While Joey did stop squirming and laughing, their final rumba looked uneasy and a bit stilted. Edyta’s toothy grins were out of place, and for whatever reason, Joey was dressed in distracting yoga pants. For no apparent reason, he began by holding a microphone and lip synching along to “Father Figure,” which the judges frowned upon. Ultimately, their performance became a sort of abstract rumba, hard to accept at face value but apparently representative of something they meant to be sexy.

Emmitt Smith is surprisingly light on his feet for a big man, as has been repeatedly noted. Nevertheless, a jive full of bounce and flicks of the toe would probably not play to his strengths, so he and Cheryl performed a smoother, more bluesy jive — more boogie-woogie than speeding train. Cheryl intermittently looked like she was straining herself to make the dance look like it was moving faster than it was, but Emmitt remained cool, relaxed, and charismatic. The judges came down on him for forgetting some of his choreography, but it’s a tribute to him that it was hardly noticeable, simply because he dances with enough confidence that he never looks worried about how the performance is going.

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