Top Ten! This is where it all gets exciting, baby. Let’s review last night’s dances.

Melanie and Vincent did a Paso Doble with (whoot!) last year’s dancers, Natalie and Frances. The Quickstep is known as the “dance of death” on Dance Show, but really, I think it’s the Paso Doble that is the true test of faith. You have to have just the right mix of power, fire, and intensity to sell it. This one fell on the good side of things — I actually really liked it, enough to want to watch it a second time right away. Vincent killed it, as expected. Melanie was also good — I’m noticing that she has a way of “attacking” each of her dances, which does not mix well with the softer styles, but really worked for the Paso Doble. Loved the choreography too — such a great ending.

Amy and Cory got Yet Another Stacy Tookey Snoozefest. As usual, lots of pretty movement, no emotion. This dance was supposed to be about a boy leaving for school, and the girl who will wait for him. But if you were taking a potty break during the introduction and just plopped down on the couch in time to see the dancing itself, would you have guessed that? If I had told you that it was about a man leaving his mistress to return to his wife, or a young man leaving his obsessive older woman-girlfriend, or a narcoleptic couple in which the man has finally decided to get help, but the woman just wants to sleep more — would you have believed me? Sure, why not? Because all Stacey Tookey dances are the same!

Anyway, they danced fine, but sparkless. Amy was better in her style than in previous weeks, but still lacked personality; I thought Cory did a fine, but not spectacular, job. Not a very convincing coupling, but then again, they lost the choreographer lottery.

TJ and Emanuel did a…samba? Something latin and ballroom with Tony and Melanie. The judges slobbered all over this one, even Blake, who is the only judge who I bother to pay attention to…but why? I thought it was pretty bad, actually. TJ was as cute and as high energy as ever, and shook her bottom in a charming if not-quite-dirty-enough kind of way. Emanuel, I felt, was too light on his feet — too ballet-like in his steps, I wanted him to be stronger, harder, and more down.

Hm, that last sentence is probably going to get me some porn hits from Google.

Ahem. I thought their lifts were iffy, especially at the end there where I was sure Emanuel was going to drop TJ on her ass, and overall the routine was just a little too clunky.

Everett and Kim got jazz with THE CHEESEMAN. Talk about stacking the deck — the best two dancers with the best choreographer! They better as hell be safe tonight. Anyway, they both rocked, loved it, loved them, watched it four times. LOVE.

Also, let me add here that Everett’s solo left me swooning and he’s now my favourite. COUGAR ALERT.

Lastly, Jayme Rae pulled the dreaded Austin and they did some kind of hip-hop with ShoTyme. Jayme Rae rocked it — she was very free and flowing in her movement, and added her own flair. I think she’s so great. Austin looked like he was working way, way too hard. You could just tell that he was thinking about every movement, and not just letting it come organically. That’s too bad, because Austin’s solo was actually his best yet, and also, I got the feeling he was really trying to do better with Jayme Rae than past partners. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how it plays out tonight.

Deserves to go home: Cory and Amy. Probably will go home: Austin and Amy.

See you tonight!