SkimIt
The house band is joined by an orchestra for classical night.
Classical Beauty
Kudos to Dancing with the Stars for this week's theme selection. While most genre picks function as a draw for fans of that music type, this week's focus on classical music brings a smaller built-in audience, but a more disciplined and demanding set of routines.
Katherine and Mark are up first, dancing an elegant, arrhythmic rhumba to "Pachelbel's Canon in D." The judges are divided on the pair's chemistry, but they have nothing but unanimous praise for her technique: She earns straight nines.
Damaged Goods
Maksim and Melissa follow, dancing an Argentine tango to "The Marriage of Figaro." Maks recently discovered a cyst in his foot, which meant a lot of uncertainty going into tonight's routine: Mellissa learned her tango with both Chmerkovskiy brothers just in case Val had to step in. The strained rehearsal leads to a sloppy performance and some apologetically brutal judge comments. They earn straight sevens, a fairly damning score at this point in the competition.
William faces a similarly threatening ankle injury for his Viennese Waltz with Cheryl, though it doesn't hurt his routine a bit. Twelve-year-old singing prodigy Jackie Evancho guest sings "Ave Maria," and the result shows, as Bruno notes, a refreshingly vulnerable side to William. They score straight nines.
Nearly There
Roshon and Chelsea tackle an Argentine tango tonight, accompanied by a sweeping orchestral arrangement of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance." The cleverly reimagined music outshines the dancing by a fair bit in my opinion, but they still manage mixed-to-positive comments from the judges. They score a nine and two eights.
