DTWS S027, Week One, Episode Two: Lotsa Filler

I just love this picture of Emma and Sasha.

The first night of Season 27 was wonderful. There were a lot of people competing in their first dance, plus all the judges’ comments. It was a full night. We get to the second night, and what is there to do?

Well, we can’t have everyone dance again (cause that’ll fill up the hour), and all we really want to do is kick out our first contestant. But that doesn’t take an hour.

So, here’s what they do. They pull together some craziness where the bottom five (more or less) are dancing “to see who goes home.” And even that doesn’t take up an hour, so the rest is a whole lot of promo filler: of their new companion show, Dancing with the Stars: Juniors. Some of the kids come on and dance. Some of the kids come on and host a bit. One sings. Blah blah blah.

There is also an extended promo of a new ABC show. Yawn.

I’m not going to cover all of that nonsense.

The one thing I really did like about this episode is that they showed what happened last night with each of the competitors, and added little bits of backstage banter that we don’t normally see. I really do love those moments.

Still, it is by and large recapping what we just saw... They put up four couples at a time, and tell them if they are “Safe,” or “In Jeopardy.” I’ll spare you the drama. Here are the couples in jeopardy:

Nancy and Val. Nikki and Gleb. John and Emma. Alexis and Alan. Danielle and Artem. Mary Lou and Sasha.

They pick six couples in jeopardy, out of 13 competing. Inexplicably (maybe for time reasons), they decide to declare one SAFE: Emma and John. Yay!

So the other five have to dance. They pretty much dance the dance they did the night before, but with different (slightly) choreography to a different song.

We have:

Sasha and Mary Lou reprising their cha cha, this time to “Hot Stuff.” Wonderful dance. Mary Lou’s nerves seem to have abated. She seems more relaxed.

JUDGES’ SCORES: 21 (out of 30)

Artem and sight-impaired Danielle are up next, with a foxtrot to a great song (sounded like Coldplay, but not sure).

JUDGES’ SCORES: 18 (out of 30)

Nikki and Gleb reprise the salsa thing they were doing yesterday.

JUDGES’ SCORES: 18 (out of 30)

Alexis and Alan have amazing costumes.

Again dancing a jive, to “Boom Boom Shake the Room”—at least that’s what I wrote in my notes. Not sure of the actual song title.

JUDGES’ SCORES: 23 (out of 30) (Highest score of the night)

Finally, Nancy McKeon and Val Chmerkovskiy were “Walking on Sunshine,” with their quickstep. Sad, but Nancy is definitely a much better actress than she is a dancer. But Val is always amazing at making the dance seem fun and lighthearted.

JUDGES’ SCORES: 21 (out of 30)

For our bottom two, we have:

First to go home in the 27th season?

Adios, Nikki Glaser.

PS—In the previous column, I stated that Dancing with the Stars: Juniors had already started. In reality, the first few episodes of DWTS were first, then Kids ran concurrently on Sundays. (Although it had been taped previously.)

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