TV

So my coin-flip pick between Penn Gillette and Adam Corolla for who would be first to go proved wrong. Thanks to 20-20 hindsight, I can see why now. Penn Gillette has built his celebrity (such as it is) on being an anti-sympathetic character and his dancing was just so gratingly awful. Adam Corolla earned his keep by being cute and funny and proving capable of marginal improvements in his dancing. It won't be enough to keep him around long, but it saved him from being the first cut.

As for Monica, it was easy to read the writing on the dance floor. It's a shame, really, since as Bruno pointed out (exclaiming "wow, you really threw yourself in the deep end of the pool") she was maybe the truest example of the show's amateur premise -- she had no dance background, was not just unfamiliar but completely uncomfortable with the demands of dance, and yet was committed to trying her hardest. It would have been interesting to see if she could have broken out of herself and discovered her inner dancer, but she was also the weakest performer -- so out she goes.

I don't know in what particular order, but it's easy to pick out who will soon follow: In the words of Tom Bergeron, in no particular order, they are as follows: Adam Corolla (he's not that funny and certainly not nearly cute enough), Marissa Jaret Winokur (her crazy intensity may seem endearing now, but just wait, scary-creepy is just around the bend), Priscilla Presley (she's got the celebrity legend thing going, but speaking of scary-creepy) and Steve "the Gute" Gutenberg (it was hilarious when Tom Bergeron couldn't help but exclaim "Oh wow, Steve and Anna" when they were the first couple spared -- he can't dance and no amount of Police Academy nostalgia is going to keep him around for long).

The obvious choices for the finals are: Kristi Yamaguchi, Jason Taylor, Mario and Marlee Matlin. But Shannon Elizabeth's quick-step last night showed she may be a contender and if Christian can ever snap out of his dreamboat doldrums he could step up.