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3/15/2007 12:44:00 PM

Handicapping Dancing with the Stars

Laila Ali
Will the dance floor give Laila Ali more problems than the boxing ring?
Mike Guastella/WireImage.com
I've never watched Dancing with the Stars show but I certainly plan to make this season my first (March 19 on ABC; set your DVRs kids!). Here's my uninformed DWTS cheat sheet:

• Laila Ali: I haven't seen Muhammad Ali's daughter in the ring, but I get the impression that she's never faced anyone who has posed any kind of a threat. Seems like there's a good chance she'll just snap and throw a body blow under duress. Honestly, I liked the idea of her much more before Million Dollar Baby, which I hated with a venomous passion.

• Billy Ray Cyrus: I don't recall there being anything redeeming about Achy Breaky Heart, but he followed that with a great turn in Mulholland Drive. I see comeback potential galore.

• Clyde Drexler: A career 20.4-points, 6.1-rebounds, 5.6-assists guy -- will we really remember the Glide in 10 years? Seems unlikely. Was Craig Ehlo busy?

• Joey Fatone: I vividly remember seeing him live on stage with *NSYNC a few years back when I got to watch rehearsals for the Grammys at Madison Square Garden. I can't read lips, but I'm pretty sure he was saying something like, "Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap! This is friggin' awesome, guys! AWE-SOME!" I can't imagine DWTS will be much different. I peg him as the first off the show.

• Shandi Finnessey: Don't know her. And there's no chance ABC allows someone I don't know to win, right?

• Leeza Gibbons: Ditto.

• Heather Mills: Let's just hope that someone at ABC has enough sense of humor to sneak in a Beatles-themed episode this season. If Mills can suck it up for that, she gets my vote.

• Apollo Anton Ohno: Seems his 15 minutes passed a while ago, doesn't it? But if I have to pick an athlete, it's Ohno over Ali and Drexler. The ladies tell me he's quite the looker, which is, like, good for ratings and all.

• Paulina Porizkova: Apparently she has posed in SI's swimsuit issue, but I'm still clueless, which seems to be a theme here. Says something about ABC's casting department, no?

• John Ratzenberger: Vincent Pastore really bailed? He hasn't had respectable work in over five years! Anyway, I was never really a Cheers guy, so I mostly know Ratzenberger's Cliff Clavin character from Jimmy Fallon's impression, which is surprisingly solid. Download Track 7 on Fallon's CD, The Bathroom Wall, if you're into that sort of thing. I'd point out here that Ratzenberger gets my hipster vote for appearing in Empire Strikes Back, but that's probably the most overused bit of useless trivia I've heard since he was cast a week ago. I won't act like I was the first to tell you.

• Ian Zeiring: I think I've made my opinion of Beverly Hills, 90210 clear. That said, Ziering looks like he can probably dance. If I had money -- which I don't -- it would be on him.

LIGHTS OUT

Let's get this out of the way up front: I adore Friday Night Lights. After my roundup of episodes 1-17 last week, some readers assumed otherwise. Oh, no. I admire its originality and willingness to stick to side plots -- Jason Street would simply go away in any other network show. I love that football action is secondary, but that football philosophy is everywhere. I respect that I can relate to the storylines, or at least try to. I see Kyle Chandler (Coach Taylor) and Connie Britton (Tami Taylor) as an Emmy-worthy duo. And I'd take Aimee Teagarden/Zach Gilford over Seth Cohen/Summer Roberts or any combination of 90210-ians any day of the week. That's Florida-versus-Jackson State easy.

That said, I'm a newby. I'm fragile. I'm volatile. I said, "Here I am NBC! I'm yours! Take me!" And I was rewarded with two Wednesdays of -- Dateline!? Where are my new episodes?

I have to assume that the Dillon Panthers will win in the state semifinals, no doubt in sensationally dramatic fashion. I'm imagining a high school version of the Music City Miracle. And I know that Jason and Lyla will patch things up. (Though I reiterate my prognostication that the pair is Splitsville any week now.) But it really pains me to not know what comes of Tyra and Tammi's new friendship. ...No, really. Is Coach Taylor serious about this offer from TMU? (What is TMU, for that matter?) And how long is it, really, before Riggins knocks up his new single parent neighbor? My only hope is that Daddy No. 1 comes back to scoop up the little brat that she's harboring now. The kid gives me the willies. Oh, and there's the Buddy Garrity situation: he's sleeping on the Taylors' couch for the time being. Can we simply pretend that didn't happen? Take a cue from The Sopranos just this once and jettison this subpar scenario. Throw it in the scrap pile with The Sopranos' Russian In the Woods, who never came back. Alongside Claire's baby and the Arctic-bound castaway-trackers on Lost.

And let that be the last time Friday Night Lights takes a cue from Lost... Or Heroes... Or Sopranos, all of which have tortured their audiences with drawn-out hiatuses. When is the last time we saw Tony and 'Mela? Seems like 2003. So, I'll deal with two FNL-less weeks. It's given me time to catch up on Heroes (I've reached Episode 12, but have been warned about an oncoming dull period) and to retread Season 2 of the American version of The Office. Does anyone else find Dwight as one-dimensional and simple as I do? I won't say overrated. Rainn Wilson is among the best at what he does, which is aggravate. But he's not obnoxious anymore. He's certifiable. He can join Claire's baby and the Russian and Buddy Garrity, in my mind. For now.

HOW I FEEL ABOUT BLADES OF GLORY (THIS WEEK)

In one word: better. I spent 10 minutes on the phone with Will Arnett for a Q&A this week, and now I'm convinced that he can single-handedly lift this movie out of the gutter. He plays a pairs figure skater alongside his wife Amy Poehler, who is every bit as cute as she is funny. And after talking to Arnett I can't imagine a situation in which he'd let this movie suck. He was telling me about the skating scenes, which he came well-prepared for as a former hockey player, and he says he got frustrated with the toe pick, to which he wasn't accustomed. So, he says, he took the skates to his hockey shop and had the problem fixed. Arnett: "I didn't even tell the skating coach. I just said, ‘Get rid of it now!' They shaved it right off." I can just picture Jon Heder slacking off from time to time, falling into his Napoleon Dynamite character, at which point Arnett bursts into the scene and slaps him around a bit. Kind of a "don't f--- this up, Heder!" Regardless, it comes out in two weeks, so I don't have much time to start thinking it's going to suck again.
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Comments:

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Posted: 10:25 AM, March 16, 2007   by Anonymous
Here's a guy's take on DWTS. If you have tween daughters, you would know that Billy Ray Cyrus is best known as Hannah Montana's dad (on the show and in real life). Leeza Gibbons is a talk show host, mainly known for having spectacular legs so she will make good eye candy. Being a big Lakers fan I cannot vote for Drexler. And being a big Paul McCartney fan, I hope Heather Mills gets herself voted off real, real soon. I hate her.
Posted: 1:57 PM, March 16, 2007   by Anonymous
I find it hard to believe you didn't put a little more research into this. I'm sure you will find that Shandi will likely be the Cinderella underdog story of the competition. She has quite a following from all of the Gameshow Network fans. Venture on over to "Quiznation" on GSN Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights to witness the greatness of Shandi from 12-2 AM ET.
Posted: 2:47 PM, March 16, 2007   by Anonymous
Did the guy above honestly spend time typing in..."Venture on over to "Quiznation""...on the Game show network...on friday and saturday night between 12 and 2 am...?
I'd rather wax my sack than admit that I was doing that...
Posted: 2:52 PM, March 16, 2007   by Anonymous
Clyde Drexler is one of only three players in NBA history to have posted career totals of at least 20,000 points, 6,000 rebounds and 6,000 assists (the two others being Oscar Robertson and John Havlicek). Yeah, no one's going to remember him.
Posted: 12:37 AM, March 17, 2007   by Anonymous
I want Shandi Finnessey to win. She's Miss USA of 2005 and was 1st runner up in the Miss Universe contest. I know who she is because she's from St. Louis, Missouri, and that's where I'm from. She's the only woman from Missouri to ever win a Miss USA contest.
Posted: 12:00 PM, March 17, 2007   by DFWPhoto
Paulina was a model in the 80's (Remember those pin up posters guys?) She has been in SI and does Victoria's Secret.. Leeza was a well known host on Entertainment Tonight I *believe* alongside John Tesh.
Posted: 1:07 PM, March 17, 2007   by Craig S.
Ditto on the weird Drexler diss. Drexler was named one of the 50 greates players in NBA history, is in the Basketabll Hall of Fame (voted in on his first ballot), won an Olympic gold medal and an NBA championship ring, and was one Lorenzo Charles freak dunk from having an NCAA championship to boot. Meanwhile, Craig Ehlo is most famous for watching helplessly while Jordan made "the Shot".
Posted: 11:31 PM, March 17, 2007   by Anonymous
arnett?? idiot
Posted: 12:17 AM, March 18, 2007   by Anonymous
Dude, did you live under a rock in the 1980s? I'm a girl, and even *I* know who Paulina Porizkova is (of course, I have a brother and so I was forced to).

She was a model, pretty big in the 1980s, and then she married Ric Ocasek from Cars (and was even in one of the videos...I think it was 'Magic.') And then she fell off the face of the earth. (Or I went off to college and no longer had to know who she was.)
Posted: 5:13 PM, March 18, 2007   by Anonymous
Do you even watch TV? How do you not know who Paulina Porizkova or Leeza Gibbons are? And what's with that shot at Drexler? He was one of the 3 or 4 best players in the league during the late 80s and early 90s.
Posted: 9:45 PM, March 18, 2007   by Dan
Hey now, let's not be too harsh on Clyde. Granted, I grew up and live in Portland, but hey, he retired over 10 years ago and you're still respectfully referring to him as the Glide, so it makes me question your implied belief that he'll be forgotten in another 10 years. That, and I think that his first ballot nomination to the Hall speaks for itself. Forgotten in 10 years? Not the wisest thing you've ever said.
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