‘Dancing’ steps it up with double-dance night

The Latin half of the show opened with Laila and Maks performing a high-energy samba in which Laila finally seemed completely comfortable in the thigh-baring ensembles required for Latin dances. She shook, wiggled, and shimmied, while never losing track of the fact that it was to be an organized dance and not a novelty act. It’s very easy for the sambas, with their down-to-here shirts on the men and their bright ensembles, to turn into farce, and Laila has managed to stay on the right side of the line. She received three tens, along with huge praise for turning up the intensity and, in the eyes of Carrie Ann, being totally relaxed and open for the first time.

John can’t really dance Latin, but the calming routine Edyta worked up to “Under Pressure” was enough to convince the judges that, while John is very bad, he’s not entirely bad. In fact, Carrie Ann congratulated him on being the best of the old men they’ve had on the show — in other words, she likes him better than George Hamilton or Jerry Springer. He still got bad scores, because … he’s still John Ratzenberger trying to dance, and “better than Jerry Springer” isn’t especially high praise.

Apolo and Julianne hit their fun, youthful sweet spot a bit more with their samba, which brought them back to the energetic and borderline hyper energy of some of their best dances. They both seemed to enjoy the samba quite a bit more than the foxtrot, and the judges liked it better, too. Len still complained that it was good but not great, but Bruno loved it and Carrie Ann called it a nice recovery from the so-so treatment of their foxtrot.

Ian Ziering made another stab at “letting go” with a mambo that brought him to the stage in the shiny red sleeveless shirt that marks the final induction of all male contestants into the Hall Of Pictures Your Friends Will Keep Showing Forever — friends probably including Jason Priestley and some other “90210” pals who were in the audience. Ian clearly attempted to let it all hang out for the mambo, and when he received high praise and three 9s, he was clearly disappointed, as he had gotten his heart set on his first 10, which was not forthcoming.

Billy Ray’s samba had much in common with his waltz, in that what it didn’t have was Billy Ray dancing very much. He danced around Karina, he pointed, and he generally grooved to “Living In America.” But as for doing anything that looked like a samba, there was very little to go on. As they often do with incompetent male dancers, the judges went on about how much fun it is to watch Billy Ray even when he’s terrible, which wasn't really true this week. In past years, the over-the-top nuttiness of Jerry Springer, sure. But Billy Ray just stands around a lot, and it’s not clear that everyone else finds that as mesmerizing as Carrie Ann does.

Joey closed the show with his jive, which played directly to his tap-dancing, boy-band-trained, posture-not-that-important strengths. He certainly did a good job, but viewed in combination with the foxtrot that erred on the side of mugging, the jive makes Joey look a bit like a one-trick pony who can do the fast dances and not necessarily much else. There’s no question that he’s the guy most accustomed to cutting a rug in front of his friends and neighbors (and everyone who watches MTV), but slow dances that emphasize technique and not just tricks and stunts have left him a little out in the cold, so this week may not be typical of the results he’s going to see.

It’s not news at this point to say that the bottom two are, and have been, Billy Ray and John. Billy Ray, however, has been appointed the Adorable Loser of the season, so it looks like John may be cashing in his chips next week. At the same time, Laila and Joey will share first place in the judges’ hearts for a week, proving that there really are multiple ways to do well on this show.

Linda Holmes is a writer in Bloomington, Minn.

MORE FROM DANCING WITH THE STARS

Donny claims ‘Dancing’ crown

Donny claims ‘Dancing’ crown Mya, Donny reach perfection in ‘Dancing’ final One couple out, three head to ‘Dancing’ finals Whitney to sing on ‘DWTS’ finale Mya scores another perfect 10 ‘Dancing’ ‘Dancing’ bids farewell to another star ‘Dancing’ does time warp with themed dances Two more couples get the boot on ‘Dancing’ Aaron Carter shines on ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Two couples leave on ‘Dancing With the Stars’   Add Dancing with the Stars headlines to your news reader: