"Dancing with the Stars": Martina Navratilova is the first star sent home
Tuesday's elimination - that of tennis great Martina Navratilova - was as predictable as so many of her Wimbledon triumphs.
Pictures: "Dancing with the Stars"
No, the joy lies in seeing the intimate snippets of sound captured during Monday night's performances and the footage captured straight after. Here is where secrets are revealed, tears are shed and characters occasionally shredded.
For example, Melissa Gilbert, having come off the dance floor, declared it was the most fun she'd ever had - on the dance floor.
Partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy naturally - and suggestively - asked what other places she might have had fun. "Disneyland," was her coy (but not very) reply. Well, it is an ABC show.
Tony Dovolani, during his accompaniment of Navratilova, had seen that she was flagging. "Keep going," he kept urging. "We're trying, I know," he added, a phrase that certainly had more than one potential meaning.
Sometimes trying isn't enough. So the tennis veteran was early on told she was in jeopardy. "Really?" mused Navratilova, in mock surprise.
In the interlude following, we had pause to enjoy Sugarland. Oddly, the wonderful Jennifer Nettles - one of America's finest voices - seemed to be singing to a strange bearded man with a nose ring. Not that this was making her regular partner in the pork pie hat - Kristian Bush - strum his guitar any less enthusiastically. But it still made for a peculiar sight. The nose-ringed man was Matt Nathanson and he had been summarily dispatched by the time the band came back to sing later in the show.
Roshon Fegan's delight at getting a smile from Len Goodman was shown in all its furtive glory. Soon, though, he was told that he was in jeopardy. This seemed very curious. But, just to remind anyone who might have been born in recent days, being in jeopardy has traditionally meant absolutely nothing on this show. It could be that Fegan had received more votes than anyone else. It's just that the producers like the reality of a little drama.
In order to fill a little time and show just how vital "Dancing with the Stars" is as a sturdy contributor to modern culture, we saw that Katie Couric was in the audience. Host Tom Bergeron accused her of, well, "grabbing my butt." Might she be thinking of being a candidate for a future series?
Sherri Shepherd then revealed another unusually intimate issue. After her dance, she explained to her partner Val Chmerkovskiy: "In the rehearsals, my face kept getting caught in your butt."
Though her partner explained that he had showered, this had apparently caused Shepherd to abort a move that might have gained her higher marks.
She was swiftly told that the voters had not counted her butt-reluctance against her. Maria Menounos - she of the broken ribs - was safe too, as was the surprisingly adept Katherine Jenkins.
The last dancer declared to be in jeopardy was Gavin DeGraw. However, suddenly the producers appear to have been struck by a tinge of honesty. For Brooke Burke-Charvet revealed that, in fact, the three remaining "in jeopardy" couples represented one random, cruel selection and the real, unadulterated bottom two.
So it was with no shudder of shock that Fegan was told that he was the one being toyed with. He was safe. The real bottom two comprised DeGraw and Navratilova.
Few can have been surprised that Navratilova was called out. Her jive had been a difficult thing to experience - both for her and for everyone watching.
"I just wish it had lasted longer. I blew it yesterday, unfortunately," she said, offering the same words that she might have used after a rare lost tennis match. She had suffered a similar fate to Monica Seles, another tennis great who four years ago succumbed to the peculiar demands of the televised dance.
Next week, the pain promises to be more acute - even before the judging takes place. For the contestants will be asked to base their dances on an important personal event in their lives.
This, naturally, gives the producers a chance to wring a little soap opera from each of the "stars" - yes, even William Levy, a real soap opera star.
