TV

Monday night was another adventure in irrationality -- hardly an unprecedented event in the history of either Dancing with the Stars or reality television. I understand that this is more a popularity contest than a dance competition. I also understand that dance appreciation is subjective. But aren't the judges there to provide some kind of informed and impartial counterweight to the viewer voting?

I ask that rhetorically because as Monday night so thoroughly demonstrated that's not at all how the show works. In fact, at this point, the viewers may be acting as the informed and impartial counterweight to the judges.

Once again, Carrie Ann Inaba showed herself to be maddening in her comments and scoring. First came Jason's foxtrot, which was, in a word, great. Here's a few more: stylish, graceful, witty, charismatic. Don't get me wrong; it's not like I want to marry him or anything. But the guy had never ballroom danced before this competition and he's a musclebound football player. He's big, he's tall. Who would have guessed he would become such a commanding dancer. Carrie Ann complimented his dance, gave him a 9.

Next up was Marissa with her quick-step. She was trying, she was much improved over her previous quick-step performance, but she strayed in and out of the tempo and missed a step. Carrie Ann pointed this out, and then gave her a 9. Then came Cristian and his waltz, which the judges fawned over but was boring. Fine, as I said, it's subjective. But once again, Carrie Ann issues a 9. The judging is ridiculously generic and imprecise. They talk, talk, talk but then out come the same old scores. What difference does it make, why bother with all showboating of expertise and technical nitpicking, if at the end of it, everyone gets the same score?

The other glaring mis-carrie-age of justice came at the end. Cristian performed a samba, the same dance during which he injured his arm. From the way everyone was acting, you would have thought he was getting back up on the bronco that nearly trampled him llast time he tried to ride it. He swirled and shimmied around, bare-chested, his left arm trailing him. It was fine, but nothing special. Carrie Ann gave it a 10, a perfect score. Then came Kristi and Mark doing a jive (for some reason, they were the only team to perform their latin dance first and their ballroom dance second -- hmmm, I wonder why?). It was amazing. It showed once again that Kristi is on another level, zipping through some mind-bendingly intricate steps. Whatever hairs you care to split, it was a powerhouse demonstration of skill and bravura. Carrie Ann gave it a 9. So Cristian's second dance scored higher than Kristi's, which in a subjective competition is just an objectively stupid and indefensible outcome.

As most of the viewers who responded to an ABC message-board poll asking people to rank the final four affirmed, the best dancers remaining in the competition fall in this order: Kristi, Jason, and then Marissa or Cristian, depending on which one you feel is more of an underdog and therefore worthy of your sympathetic support. The judges, meantime, seem intent on knocking Jason down a few pegs and building Cristian up and since there is no reason offered by their dancing to explain this, I'm going to fall back on my all-purpose cynicism and assume that the producers are trying to milk the Cristian as the injured warrior bravely fighting back storyline for all it's worth. Ugh.

Marissa will probably be eliminated tomorrow night, though it would be sweet if Cristian is sent packing. Neither is good enough to be in the finals -- it should have been Mario or Shannon Elizabeth. But that would just be too rational an event in this crazy corner of the universe.