Gilles, Melissa look like ‘Dancing’ stars to beat

Injuries are fast becoming the theme of this season of “Dancing With The Stars,” and two new ones popped up this week. What didn’t pop up were new favorites, as many dancers improved, but the same strong performers from last week’s premiere continued to dominate.

The weaker of the last-minute replacements, former Hugh Hefner girlfriend Holly Madison, didn’t improve very much. Her quickstep looked, as judge Bruno Tonioli pointed out, like she was running to catch up with her partner, which brought to mind not so much elegance as tardiness. While she’s pleasant and game, Holly will suffer if she’s consistently a beat behind the music — a problem that’s perhaps more pronounced in the quickstep than in any other dance. Eighteen points gave Holly a total of 36 over two weeks.

David Alan Grier, who got in trouble last week for mugging like the comic he is, asked Kym Johnson to make this week's routine tougher so that he wouldn’t wind up standing there while she danced around. Unfortunately, when they performed, she still seemed to be doing the “wiggle around the uncoordinated celebrity” dance. The judges were hard on their slow salsa, bluntly pronouncing it pretty bad. David, clearly holding back frustration, scored 17 points, for a total of 36.

Last week, Denise Richards found herself on the receiving end of harsh criticism, in that she was stiff and looked nervous. During this week’s generically inoffensive quickstep, she still looked icily terrified, but perhaps slightly less so. Fortunately for her, the judges were kind and she received straight 7s.

Next up was Belinda Carlisle, whose waltz last week looked a bit ungainly. Unfortunately, her salsa was the same. It was more fun, but it is beginning to look like Belinda is simply one of those people who is not a dancer. When judge Carrie-Ann Inaba squirmed before flatly telling her the dance was “lacking in grace,” it was easy to sympathize with both of them, because the truth does, after all, hurt. Her 18 points this week, and 35 total, make her position tricky.

These boots were made for dancing?
The award for most improved was easy to hand out to rodeo champ Ty Murray, who had a disastrous first show and improved immensely this week, as if he’d shed a particularly uncomfortable pair of boots. He admitted that he forgot a good part of last week’s dance, but this week’s looked seamless. “I just don’t want to go out there and be horrible again,” he said during rehearsals, and he definitely wasn’t. He pulled 20 points for a total of 34 — still low on the scoreboard, but a full six points better than last week.

INTERACTIVE Vote: How did ‘Dancing’ stars do? Rate the ‘Dancing With the Stars’ performers, and judges, each week and find out how your rating holds up.

Do you remember being 17? One of the best signs that gymnast Shawn Johnson is a normally socialized teenager is that she found the idea of wiggling her hips for the salsa to be totally mortifying. Her dance was quite good, but the fact remains that a perfect salsa is about 50 percent dirty, and an appropriately socialized 17-year-old is no more than nine or 10 percent dirty, so she (fortunately) can’t do it precisely as a professional would. She earned straight 8s.

Although Steve Wozniak is another non-natural dancer, he was also much improved, despite a foot fracture. (“Uh … you’re crushing your foot,” the doctor told him.) He dropped a few steps on the Buddy Holly quickstep, which was very well conceptualized by his partner Karina Smirnoff. But all things considered, the 17 he earned this week — a four-point improvement — was a major sign of progress. He won’t win, but don’t be surprised if he has Jerry-Springer-like durability.

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Country singer Chuck Wicks, confronted with the salsa, pronounced it too feminine for him. “Hip, hip, hip,” said his partner Julianne Hough, pointing out a move. “Like a girl?” he asked. While his attitude was tiresome, his salsa was mostly dull, the biggest question being whether they killed Big Bird to make Julianne’s pants. The judges found the dance aggressively ordinary, and they rightly faulted Chuck for letting girlfriend Julianne do all the work. He was lucky to escape with 20 points.

Last week was hard on NFL veteran Lawrence Taylor, but he was another who improved. He’s never going to be Emmitt Smith or Jason Taylor, but he has shed the aura of discomfort that lingers around guys with big frames as they get used to floating about. The judges were kind and noted his improvement, but he wound up with the same 20 points as the mostly criticized Chuck, reflecting perhaps the different expectations for musicians and football players.

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