Dancing with the Stars: Season 11 Week 7 and 200th Show Landmark

This was the 200th Show for Dancing with the Stars, a big accomplishment for any television show, but since this is Dancing with the Stars, it was at its glitziest, twinkliest, start-studded best. The ballroom was surrounded by past competitors and winners which made for a most receptive audience. For this show the audience was treated to a competition between two groups headed by two previous winners and both of them happened to be Olympic gold medal winners as well. For the second part of the show each of the remaining couples was to perform a danced inspired from memorable dances of the last ten seasons. This basically means that they perform a dance with choreography inspired from a past dance with the same song. As a twist, the celebrity who performed that dance would be the extra judge. Each couple will have two separate scores; one from their team dance and one from their iconic couple dance and will have one total combined score.

For this competition, participants were chosen by past winners Kristi Yamaguchi and Apolo Ohno for their team dance and each team dances a group Cha Cha Cha inspired by the dance performed by the team's coach. Team Apolo had Jennifer Grey with Derek Hough, Brandy with Maksim Schmerkovskiy, and Kurt Warner with Anna Trebunskaya. Team Apolo had Rick Fox with Cheryl Burke, Kyle Massey with Lacey Schwimmer and Bristol Palin with Mark Ballas. Looking at the two teams, Team Kristi was really the underdog.  The selections however was favorable because it kept the top dancers Brandy and Jennifer on the same team so that neither would be at a disadvantage because of the team dance and the same thing for the bottom two dancers, Kyle and Bristol.

Team Kristi's dance was based on her winning freestyle dance with Mark Ballas. It was bright, cute and funky and the team executed it well. Their group dance score was 24. Team Apolo's dance was based on his winning freestyle dance with Julianne Hough. This team was funky, brash, and hip-hop inspired. Their group dance score was 27. I thought everyone brought their A game with them. Their couple dances are looking to be incredible. Every celebrity dancer has improved a lot from their very first week and not one couple wanted to look bad.

For this segment of the show, a celebrity judge will be part of the judging panel to score the couple who is dancing their memorable dance. The dance will not be the same, the song is but the dance choreography was inspired from the original dance.

Kyle Massey with Lacey Schwimmer. Their dance was the paso doble inspired from the dance performed by Mel B with Maksim Schmerkovskiy. Kyle continues to be fun to watch but his technique has improved drastically; his footwork is so much better, his carriage is much better, moves are more confident. Now Mel B's dance was oozing sexuality and had some dominatrix thing going on. Clearly Kyle is not going to be able to pull off something that mature, he is only 19, but for him, I thought he did the dance very well. Dance Score: 35 Team Score: 24 Total Score: 59

Kurt Warner with Anna Trebunskaya. Their dance was the tango inspired from the danced performed by Emmet Smith and Cheryl Burke. Kurt's dance has also improved, he didn't look as awkward as last week and looks much smoother, and more importantly he looks like he's having some fun. Dance Score: 34 Team Score: 27 Total Score: 61

Bristol Palin with Mark Ballas. Their dance was the viennese waltz inspired from the dance performed by Kelly Osbourne and Louis Van Amstel. Of the remaining six, she is the only celebrity that is not a performer by any means. Kyle, Jennifer, and Brandy are top notch performers and know how to connect to their audience. Rick and Kurt are athletes in sports that have always put them in the limelight so they also know how to cater to their audience. For Bristol, who against all odds has lasted to week 7, she has made huge improvements in movement and technique and also in performance. But because she has a low key style to begin with, her expressiveness will never be as big as the others, nevertheless I think her own style suits her and connects her to the audience and I'm kind of sick of the judges always criticizing it. There was one instance of incredulity during the judging and it had to do with Kelly Osbourne. As Kelly was critiquing the performance, she said to Bristol "you have big shoes to fill" and some people snickered loudly in the audience. I snickered in front of the television. From what I remember of her time with DWTS, she was the first to shut down when things got overwhelming, and no, those shoes were not big to fill. Dance Score: 33 Team Score: 24 Total Score: 57

Rick Fox with Cheryl Burke. His quickstep was a revelation! He danced a quickstep inspired from the dance by Helio Castronueves and Julianne Hough. For a very tall man, Rick danced fast, smooth, and with quick little steps so it didn't look like he overwhelmed his much smaller partner. His posture has always been excellent and he also looked like he was having great fun. Dance Score: 37 Team Score: 24 Total Score: 61

Brandy with Maksim Schmerkovskiy. Brandy performed one hot, seductive, sexy foxtrot. She danced a foxtrot inspired from the dance by Gilles Marini and Cheryl Bourke. She did make one slight bobble and it wasn't her fault, it was her long skirt that got in the way. Even so, she got a 10 from Len Goodman, the toughest judge. Dance Score: 37 Team Score: 27 Total Score: 64

Jennifer Grey with Derek Hough. One can't help but be concerned for Jennifer. She is petite, her body is 50 years old, there are iron rods in her neck because of past injuries and she has been put through a lot of difficult choreography and stressful moves so that she has many small injuries. Her last dance was a disaster. She came back with a vengeance. Her tango, inspired from the dance performed by Drew Lachey and Cheryl Bourke, was full of drama, difficult moves, great movement, good carriage and a wonderful performance. Dance score: 37 Team Score: 27 Total Score: 64

I thought that the judges did a much better job than in previous weeks. They seemed to judge on the totality of the dance instead of the one thing that bothers them. Perhaps their experience last week with Audrina Patridge where they verbally reamed her on her lack of connection to the audience but gave good scores taught them a lesson; that they should be careful about what they say and actually be verbal about all aspects of the dance.  But they should have been doing that all along. Score: 8

Every dancer kicked it up a notch this week, but the bottom two dancers are Kyle and Bristol. Because of the elimination of last week's high scorer, Audrina Patridge, I have no idea who will go, it could be either of these two or any of the other four. If you look at the total scores, there is only a 4 point difference among the bottom four so the number of votes will really determine who will get eliminated.  Tune in Tuesday, and don't forget to vote!.

not Bristol Palin with Mark Ballas! Unbelievably it's Rick Fox with Cheryl Burke!! He had his best score the other night and he was so great to watch. Boos were heard from the crowd.  The judges were stunned.

The three celebrities in jeopardy were part of Team Kristi: Rick Fox, Bristol Palin, and Kyle Massie. The first to be declared safe was Bristol and Mark. There was such an audible gasp! Bristol and Mark were in shock! So the couple to be booted off was either Rick and Cheryl or Kyle and Lacie, both very popular couples with higher scores. When Rick and Cheryl's names were called, Kyle and Lacey also were in disbelief at being safe. Again, similar to the situation last week, Rick's higher scores were not enough to save him and Bristol's and Kyle's large voting blocks of fans saved them once again from elimination. Bristol and Kyle also helped themselves that they scored well last night, the difference between Bristol and the leaders on the board was 7 points, not a big difference percentagewise so the voting audience really determined the eliminated couple once again.