Dancing with the Stars TV Theme Week Results Preview & Week 5 Leaderboard: Who Gets the Axe?

Dancing with the Stars kicked it into high gear last night as the popular reality show hosted its first-ever TV theme week with results due to be revealed tonight on the (quasi) live elimination show. The cutesy evening focused on the remaining eight celebrities and their pro partners as they cut a rug to the tune of various popular TV theme songs. While Brandy soared to the top of the leaderboard thanks to a Friend-ly Quickstep, Bristol Palin Monkeed around and found herself in the scoring basement. Here's a look at week 5's bottom dwellers and a few predicions heading into tonight's results show.

Dancing with the Stars TV Theme week results show elimination bait: Bristol Palin and Mark Ballas, Jive, The Monkees. Bless the girl for trying and for coming out on stage in a big brown monkey suit, but it wasn't pretty. Her characteristic precision was gone, and her performance was, well, a little on the sketchy side. And more importantly, the judges weren't impressed and awarded her a trio of 6 paddles for her efforts. The teen activist has a strong fan base that could theoretically pull it out for her this evening, but I won't hold my breath. Not on week 5. Likelihood of TV Theme results show departure: High.

Dancing with the Stars TV Theme week results show elimination bait: Kyle Massey and Lacey Schwimmer, Foxtrot, Charlie's Angels. With just two more points than Bristol and Mark (thanks primarily to Len Goodman's punishing 5-paddle), the Disney kid and his partner found themselves near the bottom of the leaderboard for the second week running. Aforementioned Crankypants called it "terrible", and Bruno Tonioli criticized the duo for implementing a lack of actual Foxtrotting. Likelihood of TV Theme results show departure: Moderate, less likely than likely.

Dancing with the Stars TV Theme week results show elimination bait: Florence Henderson and Corky Ballas, Foxtrot, The Brady Bunch. This one puts me in a bit of a mental quandary. On one hand, even Lennie noted that it was probably the 76-year old actress' best dance of the season. On the other, it was just plain weird and decidedly uneven in terms of quality. It scored her a respectable 21 points, but simply failed to deliver the sparkle, shine and polish of some of her competitors' offerings, despite her shimmering golden gown. Likelihood of TV Theme results show departure: Moderate.

Also on the 'potential departure' radar, for no reason other than their seemingly persistent place 'in peril',are NFL star Kurt Warner and partner Anna Trebunksaya. Their Bewitched-themed Quickstep was cute, fun, precise and well-appreciated by the judges -- Carrie Ann Inaba went so far as to claim that she'd seen "the spirit of Gene Kelly" enter Kurt's body -- but past placement can have a profound effect on future events. Likelihood of TV Theme results show depature: Not likely, but it could happen.

Before I sign off, here's a quick look at the leaderboard results and TV theme music from week 5:

Brandy and Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Friends: 9, 9, 9 = 27

Jennifer Grey and Derek Hough, Married, With Children: 8, 8, 9 = 25

Kurt Warner and Anna Trebunskaya, Bewitched: 8, 8, 8 = 24

Rick Fox and Cheryl Burke, Hill Street Blues: 8, 8, 8 = 24

Audrina Patridge and Tony Dovolani, The Hills: 7, 8, 8 = 23

Florence Henderson and Corky Ballas, The Brady Bunch: 7, 7, 7 = 21

Kyle Massey and Lacey Schwimmer, Charlie's Angels: 8, 5, 7 = 20

Bristol Palin and Mark Ballas, The Monkees; 6, 6, 6 = 18

Sources

Dancing with the Stars TV Theme week 2010, October 18, 2010, ABC