Get set for the Dancing with the Stars Season 13 semifinals! Where did the time go? Well, it went to eight weeks of cutting out the dead wood to make way for the best of this season’s lot. Ok, I don’t even really believe that, but the voters and judges do. Tonight's show will determine who makes it to next week's finals. Let's face it. It's really going to come down to whether Hope Solo or Rob Kardashian make the cut. Read Carson Kressley's predictions here.
So for tonight, a few new things are in store. For the first time, the couples will have to dance three FULL dances. Seems the show is stretching to fill up time. For his part, pro dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy doesn’t think this is a wise idea, because it puts the contestants' health at risk. Read his latest blog entry here. But a 2 hour DWTS show must go on somehow.
For their first dance, all couples have to dance an Argentine Tango. Next up is either the Paso Doble or the Samba, depending on whether a couple has already danced it. Here’s who’s dancing what for the 2nd performance:
Ricki Lake & Derek Hough Samba
Rob Kardashian & Cheryl Burke: Samba
JR Martinez & Karina Smirnoff: Paso
Hope Solo & Maks Chmerkovskiy: Paso
In the third dance sequence, and this is really new for DWTS, each couple has to dance a cha cha in what they are calling a Cha Cha Relay. All couples will do a full cha cha and to the same song. The scoring will work differently in the Cha Cha Relay: The judges will rank them from 1st to 4th place. 1st place gets 10 points, 2nd place is 8 points, 3rd place is 6 points and last place is 4 points. (This reminds me of the sneaky winner take all cha cha from Season 12, which was designed to help keep Chelsea Kane in the running.)
DWTS will also reveal the pro dancer winners of the Design A Dance tonight. The winning dance and song have been announced: It will be a Paso Doble set to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance", performed on Tuesday's Results Show. I’m tempted to think Derek won out of the male pros. He’s been hinting about having 4 dances this week, but he’s not listed for any of the pro dance segments. That only leaves the Design A Dance!
Find out if I’m right on Dancing with the Stars: The Semifinals on Monday, November 14 at 8 p.m. (ET) on ABC.
