'Dancing With the Stars': Top 3's Best/Worst Performances
1
ERIN ANDREWS AND MAKSIM CHMERKOVSKIY: WORST
Week 1: Cha Cha Cha (score 21)
That was a LOT of yellow fringe for one opening Cha Cha. Were Maks and Erin attempting to distract from Erin's lack of fluid hip action or the fact that they were dancing to the Harold Wheeler Ensemble's rendition of Ke$ha's ''TiK ToK''? Equally confounding, yet somewhat more alluring, were Maks' sparkly suspenders, which dangled below his belt, of no use whatsoever except to cartoonishly suggest the physical contours of his butt.
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ERIN ANDREWS AND MAKSIM CHMERKOVSKIY: WORST
Week 4: Tango (18 technical/21 performance)
Too bad they went first — Erin and Maks' tango was pretty good despite Erin's spaghetti arms (as Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing would have pointed out) and the way she ''started out flamboyant and aggressive, like a murderess,'' said Bruno. He wishes! At least the couple placed much higher than Maks' prediction of 12th place (out of 9).
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3
ERIN ANDREWS AND MAKSIM CHMERKOVSKIY: BEST
Week 8: Argentine Tango (score 28)
I wonder if Maks' orders — ''Come on, woman, jump on me now'' — will echo in Erin's head long after this disco ball dream is all over. After much frustrated urging, Erin finally agreed to kick off their Argentine tango by leaping off the platform and landing on Maks' shoulder with her pelvis in his face. In rehearsals, Erin seems to get preemptively embarrassed about every idea because chances are the new move will make her look like Lurch. Maks has little patience for this because dancing is dancing (spoken sternly in a Russian accent and pedantic tone). Will Erin be able to ditch the self-consciousness for tonight's finals?
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ERIN ANDREWS AND MAKSIM CHMERKOVSKIY: BEST
Week 9: Paso Doble (score 29)
Bruno and Carrie Ann both whipped out their '10' paddles after Erin's sexy Latin routine during the semifinals. And that, my friends, is How Erin Got Her Smile Back, peephole stalker be damned. Maks had stumbled backward after their final paso pose, causing Bruno to follow up a compliment about the standard of dancing throughout the season with an incredulous ''You were the one who f---ed up!'' aimed toward Maks. To make up for his dismal error, Maks posed in the celebriquarium for Brooke Boobs & Beyond with flexed muscles in various Greek-statue-esque contortions. After season 10 is over, I think I'll pour all my ballroom-specific energy into a novel called Maksim Flexed. It'll be like Atlas Shrugged but more epic. You'll love it.
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EVAN LYSACEK AND ANNA TREBUNSKAYA: WORST
Week 1: Viennese Waltz (score 23)
Surprise! Week 1's second-place finisher to the pop star was the gold medal-winning figure skater. But Evan's first go-'round at the ballroom rodeo indicated many areas in which he could vastly improve. ''I'm not an ambi-turner,'' complained Evan. (He can only spin one way, just like Zoolander.) Evan's lines were gorgeous, but the judges warned him he needed to work on conceiving of performance as a partnership.
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EVAN LYSACEK AND ANNA TREBUNSKAYA: WORST/
Week 6: Samba (21)
I'm upset that Evan's complicated samba was underscored — DANCMSTR called it ''too balletic'' and his ''worst dance so far,'' but was it really on par with The Bachelor Jake's samba? To add insult to injury, the judges gave Evan fifth place in the swing-dance marathon, right after the camera somehow knew to focus on him and Anna executing a gorgeous/impossible whipped-legs lift. Fifth? There's not even a medal for that. It's like a puffy green or pink ribbon. Gross.
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EVAN LYSACEK AND ANNA TREBUNSKAYA: BEST
Week 7: Argentine Tango (30)
In addition to season 10's first perfect 30, Evan and Anna also earned the much-coveted honor of Hottest Rosette Use of the Night. Anna made sure not to include any balletic or lyrical moves to make sure the judges could see Evan could pull off a true Argentine tango. It worked. This was amazing. I particularly liked the way he committed with such sharpness to his stomps and head jerks. ''Strong, powerful, sexy, dominating — everything a girl would want,'' cried Bruno, politely substituting ''a girl'' for ''I.'' Bruno's head writer must have been working overtime because DANCMSTR told Evan, ''I knew you were nice on ice; had my doubts that you were gonna be good on wood.'' Groan! I'm shocked that Bruno didn't latch onto ''good on wood'' for future commentary.
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8
EVAN LYSACEK AND ANNA TREBUNSKAYA: BEST
Week 9: Paso Doble (30)
Evan's paso doble was probably my favorite dance of his in a ''proving yourself as not just a total cutie but a potential DWTS winner'' capacity. I loved that he ripped off Anna's skirt to use it as a cape for his solo, then ditched the cape after a few seconds in favor of some purposeful leaps and violent full-body flings. Capes can become crutches if incorporated into one's solo for too long. I can only assume Evan and Anna chose a song by Evanescence (''Bring Me to Life'') to really drive home the point that powerful manliness is the essence of Evan. But a safer assumption is that ABC had all these creepy prop trees lying around anyway, so this would be the perfect opportunity to reveal that the ballroom is as spooky as the forest in Twilight and that Evan Lysacek is a vampire. Also, you guys? Evan Lysacek is hot.
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9
NICOLE SCHERZINGER AND DEREK HOUGH: BEST
Week 2: Jive (score 28)
Uh oh! Nicole's heart was set on a traditional, '50s-style, ''Great Balls of Fire'' jive and then the producers had to ruin everything by forcing her to dance to Rihanna. ''We worked it out, girl,'' Nicole assured Rihanna after her dance, because Rihanna was totally watching. No worries; Derek reacts well during a crisis. ''Just do that little thing you do,'' he advised Nicole, who immediately whipped her hair around like a Pussycat Doll. Derek, for his part, started out the jive by flirting with the resident Marilyn Monroe incarnate (Pam Anderson) in the Celebriquarium before suddenly realizing oh no, it was time to sprint onstage and Work. It. Out. Girlllll. Carrie Ann approved of all of this. ''Nicole. Derek. S.O.S. Jive. Spray tan. Silver costumes. Ponytail. Great shoes. Perfection.''
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10
NICOLE SCHERZINGER AND DEREK HOUGH: WORST
Week 3: Quickstep (23)
They'd received a 10 the previous week. ''Where do we go from here?'' they wondered. Why, to sea, of course! Nicole and Derek became not just sailors, but janitor sailors, so that they could follow in the fancy footsteps of two famous couples: Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly from the movies, and Mya and Dmitry from season 9. I don't think Derek and Nicole wanted 10s this week, though — maybe to avoid viewer backlash after last week's 28. During their rehearsal segment, the producers were desperado for some way to suggest to viewers that Nicole was struggling with the choreography, so they asked her to pretend she couldn't count.
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NICOLE SCHERZINGER AND DEREK HOUGH: WORST
Week 4: Rumba (25 technical/25 performance)
Even after her second-lowest-scoring dance of the season, Nicole still managed to rank in second place for the week. Could Nicole hold back the giggles as she attempted the dance of love? Not with a braid that was possibly a snake attached to her Edyta-lite ''dress''! The worst thing the judges could come up with after Nicole's hyper-extended rumba was that her arms were over-exaggerated. I'm not sure why Nicole was on the verge of tears after receiving such hearty scores, but maybe it was due to something unrelated to dance. (Blasphemy!)
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NICOLE SCHERZINGER AND DEREK HOUGH: BEST
Week 8: '50s Paso Doble (30)
During ''Era Night,'' those silly judges thought they could stump Johnny Quest lookalike Derek with their ''1950s-style paso doble'' card. Nice try, losers! Nothing is im-paso-ble! Obviously, Derek will work it out and get it right. It's just what he does. I really liked the Grease-y feeling I got from the end of their paso, when Nicole's perma-angry facial expression actually worked in her favor. She looked like Cha Cha Degregorio, dancin' her heart out at the end of the Big Dance. She just wanted it so bad! She cares so much, you know. ''I care so much,'' said Nicole.
Read Annie's week 8 performance recap
The season 10 performance finale airs tonight. Who should win?