A repeat for Indy man and the Cheetah Girl

The unity was back on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ as the male and female contestants faced off on the same night. With Week 1 jitters and the first cut out of the way, the celebs showed what they could do with a little more practice. But how much difference does a week make for this season’s batch of ballroom-wannabes? The standings are nearly the same as the hits get stronger and duds maintain their downward spiral.

The evening started on a high note with Mel B and Maksim Chmerkovskiy taking on the quickstep. In training, Maks claimed the real challenge was to make Mel “look like a lady,” and to that end an etiquette coach was brought in to take Mel “from Scary Spice to Lady Spice.” Or, you know, she might have been brought in just to fill time with a lame skit. Needlessly.

On the dance floor, team M&M tore it up once again. Mel’s footwork in the fast-paced number showed improvement over her already impressive cha-cha-cha from last week. At the end of the routine, Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli had nothing but praise for the pair, but Carrie Ann Inaba nitpicked with “watch your shoulders.” That, and her seven in a field of eights, earned Carrie dirty looks from her fellow judges, but no complaints from Mel.

Decline time
Spreading out the talent, next up was last week’s almost losers, Mark Cuban and Kym Johnson. Mark looked better in his mambo rehearsal footage than his previous foxtrot effort, but that may have had more to do with him shaving off the scruffy goatee than any of his moves.

MSNBC video ‘Dancing’ with Mel B. Oct. 1: Access' Tony Potts talks with Melanie “Scary Spice” Brown, who starts Week 2 on “Dancing with the Stars” Monday. Access Hollywood

In the live show routine, Mark bounced around and showed plenty of energy, but looked painfully outmatched by Kym (who seriously needs to rethink that ballroom hoochie-wear ensemble). Bruno summed up the performance nicely, saying it was like “watching a bulldog chasing a squirrel.” Earning all sixes (the score of the beast!), look for Mark in the red spot again on the results show.

If there was ever a way to make Mark look good, it was to put Wayne Newton on after him. This time Wayne and Cheryl Burke played up to the Vegas fans, dancing the quickstep in their best flash finery to “Viva Las Vegas.” They’re going to need all the votes from the poker chip crowd they can get after another poor showing. Though the judges offered kind words to the pair, they received the lowest marks so far with a total of 15 out of 30.

But if those last scores had viewers thinking that the judges were ready to get tough, they were wrong. The inflated figures from last week returned with Marie Osmond and Jonathan Roberts. They stepped it up considerably from their so-so foxtrot with a playful mambo, but no matter how much skirt tossing and cheeky faces Marie pulled, they didn’t earn all eights. Hopefully their half-hearted attempt at a death drop wasn’t factored into that. Maybe Bruno and the gang fell for older-brother Donny’s audience pump after the number.

Albert Reed forgot what worked for him in Week 1. Instead of falling back on the goofy charm and outlandish moves, he and partner Anna Trebunskaya went with a more subtle approach. The problem being that subtle allows no distraction from less than perfect steps. And there were plenty of those. Albert lazied Anna around the turns and lost his pace early on. Still, the judges remained generous with a score of 21, and Len went so far as to speculate that Albert could be this year’s dark horse. Really, Len?

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