Dancing With the Stars returned for its 12th season on ABC Monday night with a night full of surprises!
Front runner Kendra Wilkinson did not come out on top despite being declared the early favorite. Kendra found herself closer to the bottom of the pack, only scoring an 18 for her cha cha dance.
The biggest surprise of the night however was 60-year-old Kirstie Alley who wowed both the audience and the judges with her high spirited cha cha dance, earning a score of 23. Kirstie and her partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy brought a lot of fun, energy and silliness into their dance. In fact, judge Bruno Tonioli declared it “the best of the night.”
And while Kirstie earned the highest score in the cha cha category, the ‘Karate Kid’ Ralph Macchio scored the highest points of the night, garnering a 24 for his foxtrot with partner Karina Smirnoff. “What an amazing surprise!” said Carrie Ann Inaba. “It shocked me that you had such elegance.” Len Goodman went on to declare his performance “the best foxtrot tonight.”
Failing to sizzle was talk show queen Wendy Williams, who earned a low score of 14 for her stiff cha cha with partner Tony Dovolani, who Wendy did not know who he was during their first meeting. USA Today‘s Ann Oldenburg called Wendy’s performance “awful” adding that “the talk show host was stiffer than Kate Gosselin when she took the floor for her cha cha cha.” Ouch.
Promising were Disney starlet Chelsea Kane and NFL player Hines Ward. Next Monday, all of the 11 stars will return to the ballroom for a new dance. Votes and scores from the first two weeks will be combined to determine who goes home on the first live results show next Tuesday, March 29.
The full scoreboard from last night is below –
Ralph Macchio & Karina Smirnoff: 24
Kirstie Alley & Maks Chmerkovskiy: 23
Chelsea Kane & Mark Ballas: 21
Hines Ward & Kym Johnson: 21
Chris Jericho & Cheryl Burke: 19
Romeo & Chelsie Hightower: 19
Kendra Wilkinson-Baskett & Louis Van Amstel: 18
Petra Nemcova & Dmitry Chaplin: 18
Sugar Ray Leonard & Anna Trebunskaya: 17
Wendy Williams & Tony Dovolani: 14
Mike Catherwood & Lacey Schwimmer: 13
TELL US – THOUGHTS ON LAST NIGHT’S DEBUT? WERE YOU SHOCKED BY KIRSTIE’S GOOD PERFORMANCE?
