‘Dancing with the Stars 23’ review: Laurie Hernandez, Terra Jole, Calvin Johnson look for Latin Night victory
Tonight’s “Dancing with the Stars” is looking to do something a little bit different with Latin night. After all, we’ve got a guest judge / performer in Pitbull, the same performers as last week, and by the end of the episode, we’re going to have an elimination and we’ll be down to just eight Stars moving forward.
So who’s going to shine, and who’s going to fall by the wayside? That’s what we’ll be figuring out tonight! This is your LIVE review, so we’re going to be providing updates as to how all of the Stars fared over the course of the show. Be sure to come back throughout for some further details. Before we start, though, we’ll hand out our official prediction on the results: Ryan Lochte is the next one out. We’ll see if that turns out right or wrong as the show progresses.
Ryan Lochte and Cheryl Burke – We spent half of this waiting for that inevitable moment where the shirt ripped open. We didn’t expect him to lose the pants. This was pretty silly, but there were a few good moves in here. Ryan’s just not a natural dancer; there’s no other way around that. Score: 30. (So much for our prediction, given Ryan is safe on the night.)
Terra Jole and Sasha Farber – Given all of the criticism Terra received for this performance, you’d almost think that the scores were lower than they were. What she did well was present a lot of effort and drive, but she struggled with the technique and the mood of the dance. Score: 30.
Amber Rose and Maksim Chmerkovskiy – We feel like we’ve been a pretty staunch defender of Amber’s for most of the season, but we do have to admit that this particular routine was a little bit on the rougher side. The movement and the fire wasn’t quite there, and it was odd since we know that she has that capability in her. Score: 28.
James Hinchcliffe and Sharna Burgess – This rumba was all sorts of lovely, and it easily showed the difference between James as a performer and the first three Stars on the night. Now that we’ve said that, Julianne REALLY has to slow her roll with the whole “best male dancer ever” talk. Score: 38.
Marilu Henner and Derek Hough – This was fun, and a further expression of how far Marilu has come so far this season. She and Derek seem to have finally figured out precisely how they need to work with each other, and it’s paying off. Score: 34.
Jana Kramer and Gleb Savchenko – We weren’t really getting the overly “sexy” hype for this dance at first, but that was before the water and all of that started to come into play. Then, things got VERY impressive. Jana deserved a perfect score just for being able to do this in heels. Score: 40.
Muareen McCormick and Artem Chigvintsev – Credit to Maureen for taking on Latin night wearing this particular headgear, and for going all out on the dance. She didn’t have the technical know-how or the passion that we saw from the previous two dances; tonight, for whatever reason she got in her own head. Score: 31.
Calvin Johnson and Lindsay Arnold – Basically, what we saw from these two tonight can be described as further proof that Pitbull is a Detroit Lions fan. He gave the football star his best score of the season, as this dance was all sorts of poised and powerful. Score: 37.
Lauren Hernandez and Val Chmerkovskiy – This was a very solid effort to end the night for Laurie, who brought a lot of fun, passion, and energy to this. There are some technical things that still can be done here and there to improve things, but this was still a strong ending overall. Score: 37.
Results – Head over here to check it out!
Want to see how everyone ranked going into the show tonight? Then be sure to check out our rankings here. (Photo: ABC.)