Dancing with the Stars 9, September 21: Overture, Curtain, Lights!

Welcome to the first night of the three-night, double elimination, premiere week of Dancing with the Stars 9! I’m your humble performance show recapper, Sandy, and by my side is my faithful canine companion, Ally. It is our pleasure to bring you this bigger-than-ever season.

If you haven’t read up on this season’s couples, go check out my preview article. We’ll wait. All caught up? Great, on with the show it is!

The show opens with the male pros descending on a catwalk to the stage where they put on a thoroughly wonderful show, as usual. I really missed this show! I’m literally speechless, which is why you’re not reading anything other than me telling you I’m speechless right now. Wow.

Hosts Tom Bergeron and Samantha Harris welcome us from the balcony and Tom promises we will see more of those guys tomorrow night. Suddenly I’m jealous of my fellow recapper, Chris Harris…

The stars are announced and descend the staircases, all smiles. Even though the ladies are not dancing tonight, they are introduced after the guys, who, of course, will compete tonight. Wow, Macy Gray is tall!

Before we get to this week’s dances, a note about the scoring for this special premiere week. It’s a little confusing, so I’ll let people.com explain it: “Each celebrity’s first dance of the night will be scored as usual by the judges, who will hold up their paddles to indicate one to 10 points from each for a maximum possible score of 30.”

“The second dance will be a relay in which each couple will dance for 30 seconds of a song. For example, four male contestants and their partners will perform the salsa on Monday, while the other four couples will dance the Viennese waltz. Judges will rank each 30-second leg of the relay. The pair that comes in first place gets 10 points; the second place pair get eight points; third is 6 points; fourth is 4 points. The maximum total score a contestant can receive on Monday or Tuesday night’s shows is 40 points. These combined scores, factored in with America’s vote, will determine which contestants — one male and one female — will be eliminated on Wednesday’s live results.”

In addition to the special scoring this week, the dance-off will return for weeks five, six, and seven, with two couples being eliminated each week. The lowest scoring couple will automatically be sent home, with the next two lowest competing in the dance-off. All couples remaining in week five will have to prepare a short dance that they will perform should then end up in the dance-off. Got that? Yeah, me either! Let’s get on to the performances, shall we?

Leading off Season 9 we have Aaron Carter & Karina Smirnoff. Aaron has been performing since the age of five and had his first solo hit at eight. He was a bit of a wild child but he has turned his life around and this is his chance to shine.

Aaron is excited to have Karina as his partner because she is beautiful. Their dances tonight are the cha cha cha and the Viennese waltz. Karina tells Aaron he will get used to heels and he jokes that he has sisters so he already is. I don’t know what it is, Karina looks much more relaxed this season than she ever has before!

Aaron & Karina’s cha cha cha is hot from the start. Aaron obviously has some dance training. His moves are much crisper and cleaner than most celebrities during their first dance. I’m not crazy about Karina’s pants, they are actually quite distracting, but the dance goes off without too many hitches (at least to my untrained eyes). Great way to open a new season!

Len says, “first dance, first show, I’d love to say first class but I can’t quite yet.” He says it had a lot of potential and was a great way to start the show.

Bruno is already in mid-season babbling form but he agrees with Len.

Carrie Ann needs to do something else with her hair, but as for her comments, she says it was good, his footwork was a bit funk at times but overall he did very well.

Tom gives our first results show plug of the season. This week it will be Wednesday at 8 Eastern. Two couples will be going home.

Samantha corners them backstage and basically what we learn is that Aaron needs to listen to Karina.

Score time! Carrie Ann gives them a 7, Len an 8, and Bruno a 7, for a total of 22.

Next up on the dance floor are Chuck Liddell & Anna Trebunskaya. Chuck is hoping to take some of his UFC success and knock out his opponents on the dance floor. Anna saw Chuck as a big challenge when she first met him. Their first dance is the foxtrot and Anna works hard training him to slow down and to smile.

Chuck cleans up pretty well! The couple foxtrots to “That’s Life” and Chuck forgets to smile at times, though he does appear to be trying. Some of his moves are tentative but for someone who admits he is very far outside his comfort zone, it’s not too bad. I could see him counting a few times though.

Bruno says they worked very well with the audience but the foxtrot was very, very rough. The footwork was poor, the lines were terrible, and the timing went.

Carrie Ann says Chuck is not graceful yet but he is smooth. He needs to find the purpose behind his movements.

Len says it was much better than he thought it was going to be. He tells Chuck to get in touch with his feminine side a bit more so he can be more graceful. But overall, he enjoyed it.