Trav's Thoughts

Season 5 of Dancing with the Stars began last night, opposite the end of the Titans vs the Saints on Monday Night Football and the season 2 premier of Heroes.

I love football. And I enjoy Heroes.

But it's Dancing y'all!

The female celebrities open the season Monday night, with the male celebrities on Tuesday night. Results are Wednesday when one celebrity is eliminated.

Three nights of DWTS! Cue that theme music baby!

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!! Drew Lachey has stepped in for Samantha Harris, who just delivered a baby girl.

Dammit y'all...this show makes me smile.

The gals begin with either Foxtrot or Cha Cha Cha.

Jennie Garth (actor) is paired with Derek Hough (World Youth Latin champion), dancing Cha Cha Cha. Jennie looks a little nervous in the rehearsal room. And the very first song is ridiculous for Cha Cha Cha. Billy Joel's Uptown Girl? Please. Odd music choice aside, Jennie did ok. She had pretty good hip action. Pam loves Derek. Bruno called Jennie a yummy Mummy, and Pam says Derek is delicious. I think Derek did well with his choreography for this first dance. He appears to have the skill set to teach Jennie how to improve. We think they did pretty well. Judges say 7's across for a total of 21. We'll agree with that.

Josie Maran (actor, model) is paired with Alec Mazo (Season 1 champion), dancing Foxtrot. She's a little clutzy in the rehearsal footage. Alec called her deceptively unfit. LOL! She's gorgeous, but she's not really graceful or elegant. Alec did the right thing by dancing in hold through the entire dance to try and hide her. She could have some trouble up against the built-in fanbases that some of the other celebrities bring to the show. Judges say 6,5,5 for a total of 16. Well, we can't disagree with that but maybe it could have been two 6's and a 5?

Sabrina Bryan (singer, actor) is paired with Mark Ballas Jr (Junior Latin American dance champion), dancing Cha Cha Cha. She's a performer. That had energy and it was sexy. The crowd loved it. She tore that dance up. She set the bar very high for herself. We didn't like the fact that there was so much hip hop in it. But she did perform the Cha Cha Cha elements very well. Judges say 9,8,9 for a total of 26. That might be a little high because of the hip hop stuff, but it defintely rewarded the fact that she attacked that dance.


Marie Osmond (entertainer) is paired with Jonathan Roberts (Latin champion), dancing Foxtrot. This is a perfect dance for her to begin and she has the perfect partner. Jonathan is an excellent teacher. Dang y'all - I had flashbacks to the Donny & Marie show. Yikes! She was charming then, and she's charming now. That wasn't the greatest Foxtrot...it may not even have been a good Foxtrot. But we enjoyed it because she had so much fun with it. She's a classy lady with a great sense of humor. Judges say 7's across for a total of 21. That's a good score. She made us smile.


Melanie Brown (singer, actor) is paired with Maksim Chmerkovskiy (International Latin champion), dancing Cha Cha Cha. Here's your front runner. She brought a restrained and professional energy to this dance. And she's paired with the perfect partner for her. She's hot and sexy and that was a complete Cha Cha Cha. We liked that a lot. The rehearsal footage made us think that she might be cheeky, but it was actually much more classy. Judges say 8's across for a total of 24. We're not entirely happy with that because we thought this was a better and more complete Cha Cha Cha than Sabrina's.


Jane Seymour (actor) is paired with Tony Dovolani (World Rhythm champion), dancing Foxtrot. Foxtrot is classy and elegant. Hello???? Miss Jane IS classy and elegant. What's not to love about Miss Jane? Simply beautiful. They glided across the floor. The choreography was wonderfully simple. That dance had both Pam and I thinking about getting out and dancing. Judges say 8's across for a total of 24. We like that score.

We will be referring to them as Ladies now, because that's how they all performed. So the leader board for the Ladies after the first dance is:

26 = Sabrina
24 = Melanie
24 = Jane
21 = Jennie
21 = Marie
16 = Josie

Let's see if the fellas will match the Ladies and dance as Gentlemen.