Ali, Ohno are ‘Dancing’ contenders

If you’re the kind of person who tunes in to a show like “Dancing With The Stars” (ABC, Mondays, 8:00 p.m. ET) just to see people be terrible and to pick out the early favorite, you may have noticed something about this season: the celebrities aren’t that bad. And as Monday night’s performance show progressed (the first elimination will be Tuesday night, based on a combination of last week’s and this week’s scores), it became clear that nobody was going to step up and be the goat, Master-P-style.

So far, the biggest surprise of the season is Apolo Anton Ohno, who charged out with a controlled but buoyant quickstep that left the judges duly impressed. Apolo’s partner, Julianne Hough, is only 18, but she’s doing something right. Despite the fact that his practice time has been cramped by speedskating practice, Apolo looks surprisingly comfortable, and he executed some leaps that would probably not have been attempted by a lot of the other men in the competition.

The problem facing former Miss USA Shandi Finnessey is that she’s clearly been hired to fill the Gorgeous Blonde role — to be the Stacy Keibler. If you’re going to do that, then your mambo had better be spot-on. Unfortunately, Shandi’s mambo with creepy, robotic partner Brian Fortuna left a lot to be desired. Brian had done everything possible to emphasize her legs, but the dance had very little energy, and at times, it fell into the trap where the professional dancer winds up dancing around the “celebrity” while the celebrity stands there and looks decorative. Shandi is almost certainly destined for an early departure.

Speaking of decorative celebrities, Clyde Drexler is very, very tall, and his partner is very short — or at least she looks very short. That caused them substantially more problems during this week’s quickstep than during last week’s cha-cha. Throw in the fact that Clyde has terrible rotator cuffs and can barely lift his elbows in the distinctive ballroom style, and you have an uphill battle. Clyde doesn’t have the grace of Apolo, but he has quick feet, and he admirably managed to navigate the close holds without entirely falling apart. He’s certainly the underdog of the men when it comes to technique, but it’s hard to judge his effort in light of the limitations of physics and medicine.

Leeza celebrates 50 in style
One of the evening’s nicer stories was Leeza Gibbons, who was turning 50 and excited about still being in the position to do a mambo in the first place. While she didn’t do the fastest mambo in history, Leeza did move her feet. She also seemed fully engaged, which is more than could be said for her last week, when she looked wooden and terrified doing the foxtrot. Leeza’s decent scores reflected an appreciation for her speedy improvement. She’s the kind of contestant who, like Giselle Fernandez and Tia Carrere, tends to be sent home in the middle, but she’s quite charming. She threw in a very sweet reference to her ailing mom, making it the most tear-jerking performance of the evening, bar none.

Also paying tribute to his parents was Ian Ziering, who was visited by his father while practicing with Cheryl Burke. In rehearsal, Ian worried primarily about hurting himself, saying he’d be happy just “not kicking myself in my own shins.” His performance was ultimately better than mere avoidance of injury. It was fairly strong, in fact, with the surprise coming when judge Bruno Tonioli actually complained that it was too bouncy, a rare complaint in a competition where it’s usually all the professionals can do to get enough spring in everyone’s step. Ian’s scores put him near the middle of the pack, but given that he’s already at the point where they’re singling out his right elbow as a weakness, he’s well on his way to contention.

The early favorite for Most Adorable Couple is Paulina Porizkova and the scrumptious Alec Mazo, who this week worked their way up to a “death drop” at the end of their mambo. The move made Paulina very nervous, but she did it. She struggled with the dance itself, denying that she had an “inner Latina,” but suggesting that she could perhaps channel her “inner American tourist visiting Havana for the first time.” Some people are never going to look entirely comfortable doing a mambo, but Paulina at least did a good impression of a woman doing her best to look entirely comfortable.

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