Dancing With The Stars -- Semi-Finals Week

It's the Semi-Finals and the Trinity of Terror aka the judges were in fine form tonight. So was Brooke Burke who is now hyphenating her name like she's Farrah Fawcett-Majors but only if Farrah has no personality and you just wish she'd go away. As always Tom Bergeron was the bright spot in this dismal cast of character. He and Maks seem to have a thang going on and it's funny to watch. Unless I saw wrong, Maks goosed Tom.

Their were four parts to the semi-finals. Three dances and their sob story. It seems after bastardizing So You Think You Can Dance, the show is now trying to include an element from American Idol. The part where they tell how they got here. I'm sorry, but this is just a cheesy celebrity dancing show based more on popularity than talent. With American Idol you have the chance of winning a recording contract, so this whole how they got here works. All you get if you win DWTS is a cheap mirror ball trophy. Depending on if you are an actual celebrity, you may also be able to reboot your failing career. But winning DWTS is not some big milestone in your life that's going to change your life..

Since DWTS has it's own dance troupe, I think they should also have their own celebrity doctor. Maybe Dr. Will from Big Brother, even though he's a plastic surgeon, I think. Last week, it was, I believe Ricki had some injury that she was going to work through the pain over to continue to dance. And this week we had medical injuries from both Hope and JR. Hope called a doctor in to give her shoulder an injection because she's having problems with it. JR didn't call in a doctor, but he twisted his ankle during rehearsal and re-twisted it during his first dance. They could make the official DWTS Celebrity Doctor a weekly bit.

Anyway, the judges panned JR's first dance. I thought it was good and I liked it. I liked it a lot better than Ricki and Derek's dance which they praised to the heavens as being great. And the Trinity of Terror gave JR no sympathy because he hurt his ankle.

The second dance was all the couples having to dance the Argentine Tango, which I think is a fairer way to judge the couples to see which could does the best dancing the same dance. Because some dances truly are harder than others. I liked JR and Karina and Maks and Hope's Argentine Tangos the best.

Crappy Ann didn't agree with me, though, as she criticized Maks and Hope's lifts. Anyone who has watched this show for several seasons knows lifts and Crappy Ann shouldn't be mentioned in the same sentence. She's like Haley Joel Osment seeing dead people; only she sees dead people doing lifts. Since lifts were legal she had to find something to complain about.

I said last week I thought Brooke "I think I'm Farrah Fawcett" Burke-whatever-the-heck her last name was has been trying to bait Maks, and I saw her trying to do it again, last night. Crappy Ann got into the act when she tried to start something with Maks because he was smiling. Apparently, she didn't like the way he was smiling. Hope took her on when she got backstage, and Maks tried to hush her up. The bad boy of the ballroom has been trying very hard to say nothing that can get someone to jump on his case over.

Of the four celebrity sob stories, I'd rank them in the following order:

JR

Hope

Rob

Ricki

I shed a couple of tears for Hope and JR's story, not so much with Rob, and I'm not entirely sure what Rick's big heartbreak was. They showed a clip of Hope after losing a soccer game, I think it was, declaring if she had been allowed to play, they would have won. She reminded me so much of Maks in that moment, it made me wonder if the reason she and Maks haven't gone on too well is because they're both too much alike.

For the relay cha-cha, Rob was declared the winner, but I thought Ricki did a better job. I liked her dance, better, at least. Going by who gave whom 10s and who they didn't I think Crappy Ann is Team Rob and Len and Bruno are Team Ricki. Sorry, JR and Hope, you're team nobody.

Judging by the dancing overall, I think it may be time for Hope to go home. Rob is better at dancing than she is. Since JR's scores were so low because of his sprained ankle, he may no longer be a shoo-in to win. Rob might be the surprising dark horse that ends up taking it all.