‘Dancing’ shows how to waste an hour

What if you held a results show and there weren’t any results?

Experienced game-show viewers knew that something was likely to be up on Wednesday night’s episode of “Dancing With The Stars” (ABC, Tuesdays/Wednesdays, 8 p.m. ET). Sara Evans quit between last week’s results show and this week’s performance show, and that leaves them a couple short.

There’s no way ABC would cut the season by an episode at this late date and miss out on the advertising revenues, so there was a near guarantee that some kind of juggling would have to be done. As it turned out, the producers chose the simplest route — they simply didn’t get rid of anyone, and all will return next week.

The problem is that results shows are, as a rule, the most boring part of any competition. The “American Idol” results show features those terrible Ford commercials, and the “Rock Star” results show let Tommy Lee babble on incessantly. But at least those shows have a payoff. At least there is something to see. Here, there wasn’t even a satisfying departure to justify all the filler. And there was a lot of filler to justify.

Hey, it’s the usual filler
Of course, there are several things you can count on in any “Dancing” Wednesday show. The first is an encore in which the judges select a dance from last night that they want to see again. Given that almost everyone was roundly criticized except Mario Lopez after last night’s performances, it was no surprise that his sharp mambo got the call. He’s being treated like a real front-runner now, as Joey Lawrence starts to look less like a talented goof and more like a touchy-feely yoga instructor.

Also standard: the audience segment, which did its usual job of making the audience look ridiculous. It revealed that everyone loved Mario and the group disco, but it also revealed that far too many people seem to really and truly care what happens, and are betting on their horses with an enthusiasm that borders on unseemly. Furthermore, hearing Leeza Gibbons explain that the people sitting near her had been eager to put their tongues in Mario’s dimples was a bit of an overshare.

The next standard element is a toothless male pop star, a slot previously filled by Tom Jones, Julio Iglesias and Nick Lachey. This week: Lionel Richie, whose first number was a straightforward, unadorned version of “All Night Long,” which you will recall was popular in 1983, when Mario was 10. While a few of the professional dancers obligingly danced around while Lionel sang, it was hard not to notice that this was a song that was already very bad when it was fresh, and while many things have aged well in the last 23 years, a bridge containing the exclamation “jumbo jumbo” is not among them.

FREE VIDEO Dancing With the sleaze Oct 19: ABC angers fans by skipping an elimination on "Dancing with the Stars." What does Sara Evans' divorce means for the hit show. Scarborough_Country

Cagey talk of elimination — or maybe not — began as hosts Tom and Samantha explained that they would be announcing which stars were safe and which were in danger of… being in the bottom two. At this point, savvy viewers were surely onto the overly coy dodge. But a ruse must go on once an episode has committed to it, so Mario and Karina were the first couple to learn that they were “safe.”

Much more surprising was that Monique and Louis learned that they were, too, despite low scores last night and traditionally spotty fan support. This meant that in addition to the inevitable Jerry, either Joey or Emmitt — both strong performers until now — would be in the bottom two.

There was a pause while we were reminded that Tysonia is still doing the Slim-Fast Challenge, her demons are being defeated, she’s sorry for everything she ever ate, she loves shakes, and… have we missed anything? The Slim-Fast Challenge, it is safe to say, has run its course.

Lionel Richie returned to perform his new song, “I Call It Love,” clearly the “All Night Long” of 2006 for its inoffensive cheese factor. The distractions continued as Nick Kosovich, who was Vivica Fox’s partner before her departure, returned to dance with his real-life wife to, oddly enough, Queen’s “The Show Must Go On.” While the rather literal application of the lyric was admirably blunt, adding this dance to a show that already included two Richie performances, a repeated dance, and a 10-minute recap of last night’s show was not a good idea.

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