Tears and High Scores on DWTS Week 8 Era Night!

Last Monday - May 10, 2010 -, the five remaining dance couples on the week 8 performance episode of Dancing With the Stars performed a Ballroom and a Latin Dance on old music which were somehow connected to a certain decade – the 1960’s – or a general concept, for example ‘The Future’.

‘Era Night’ gave the dancers the opportunity to spice up their dance acts with facial paint, fake bangs, wonderful costumes, and props. 

Tears and Scores

During the rehearsal footage, Nicole Scherzinger burst into tears for the umpteenth time. This time Nicole cried after she insisted, “there’s no drama” to her dance partner Derek Hough. She continues, “It’s not easy. I just want it to be good.” The following videoclip shows their high-spirited, funny, and very emotional Foxtrot. At 3 seconds into the video the headline 'DWTS' Set Wins Top Awards For Industry’ and ‘The Quickstep Wins Three Nines’ are clearly visible. The amount of detail is quite astonishing. Judge Bruno called Nicole and Derek’s Foxtrot ''one and a half minutes of pure dancing joy, like a jewel created by a master.'' 

Scherzinger and Hough scored 29 points in the Ballroom round, and a perfect 30 in the Latin round, which left them standing strong with 59 points on the scoreboard.

Some viewers still believe Nicole Scherzinger is being too whiny, good but overrated, not a big enough star, and that she is too much of a ringer. Now they cannot keep denying Nicole being far and away the best dancer of the current cast of Dancing With the Stars, or, as judge Carrie Ann Inaba claimed last week, ‘the best ever’. Being good does not automatically make a dancer the one who wins the competition, as viewers vote on other factors than dancing abilities such as personality. Nicole’s personality does not appeal to a large portion of the voting viewers. Despite that, she will continue to score points for her dancing skills. It is even possible to see Scherzinger dance without the viewer being able to distinguish the professional from the amateur dancer. One would think Nicole’s constant crying in front of the camera is strategically used as a tactic to win more sympathy votes, thus compensating for the voters disliking her personality.   

Other Scores

Erin Andrews and Maksim Chmerkovskiy came ‘back with a vengeance’ to fix their spot in the final rounds after the controversy which happened last week. They completely deserve the 28 points they received for their first round, and they scored 25 points after performing the Latin Rumba. Evan Lysacek and Anna Trebunskaya scored 27 points, which made them slip into second position. Their dressing as robots and dancing without visible emotions for their assigned ‘Futuristic Cha Cha Cha’ was clearly not convincing.   Chad Ochocinco and Cheryl Burke got a combined score of 45 points due to their two magnificent performances. The dance couple first scored 24 points for their Tango which was followed by a 60’s style, high energetic Jive which was rewarded with 24 points. 

A warning for everyone who thinks Nicole will end as winner of this season’s Dancing With The Stars: the show has a long history of surprising end-of-season results. That is the one factor keeping the suspense during the whole season.