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Ensign
New Semi-Stars Shine on "Dancing"
Sunday December 11 2:13 AM ET by Joal Ryan
Dancing with the Stars is going to be bigger. But can it possibly produce better ratings?
ABC's surprise summer hit will answer its own question mark starting Jan. 5. The second-season premiere will boast 10 ostensible stars vying to be crowned an ostensive dance star, up from the gang of six who started stepping on toes last June.
As announced Thursday, the all-new Love Boat will set sail with the following passengers: Wayne's World shwing-er Tia Carrere, 38; original Access Hollywood host Giselle Fernandez, 44; WWE star Stacy Keibler, 26; 98 Degrees pop singer Drew (Not Nick) Lachey, 29; ESPN veteran Kenny Mayne, 46; trivia question answer Tatum O'Neal, 42 (the youngest-ever Oscar winner); future NFL Hall of Famer Jerry Rice, 43; soap star Lisa Rinna, 42; rapper-actor Romeo, 24; and, in a nod to the inevitable, George Hamilton, 66, player of self in film, commercials and, now, Dancing with the Stars.
Keibler is such an obscure name, at least to ABC, it misspelled her last name in its press release ("Kiebler").
"At least you can't say they've lost their [knack] of going after the really big stars," cracked pop-culture pundit Robert J. Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.
Minneapolis Star Tribune TV critic Neal Justin admitted to being intrigued by the "pretty interesting lineup," and especially by Mayne, Rice and a certain famously troubled ex-Bad News Bears curveballer.
"I wanna see Tatum O'Neal dance--sober," Justin said.
That said, Justin doesn't see Dancing with the Stars returning to the heights scaled by the cha-cha-ing Kelly Monaco and John O'Hurley, who despite their own lack of A-list-ness, helped the show average 16.8 million viewers last season.
"This has all the makings of being a summer fling," Justin said. "The risk is, are they burning off a nice summer franchise? If this bombs in January, they can't bring it back in summer."
The tap shoes already looked scuffed in September when Monaco and O'Hurley, the last two semi-stars standing from season one, returned for a so-called "dance off." Whereas Monaco's season-ending victory in July was watched by 22.4 million, O'Hurley's revenge-is-sweet comeback in the fall was watched by fewer than half that many, 10.5 million.
As it is, even 10.5 million would be an improvement for ABC in the 8 p.m. Thursday hour that Dancing with the Stars' competition episodes will occupy. (The 30-minute results episodes will air at 8 p.m., Fridays, starting Jan. 6.) Alias, which is being benched for two months to make way for Dancing, was attracting only 7 million on Thursdays for ABC.
The 8 p.m. Thursday wars, long intense, have become even more heated of late with UPN making noise with Everybody Hates Chris, and NBC yanking Joey (as of January) and hoping a tired Will & Grace will lead in big to the all-new Four Kings, which it hopes will lead in big to the night's would-be savior My Name Is Earl. Looming above all these shows and moves: CBS' Survivor.
To Thompson, Dancing with the Stars will never compete with Survivor for drama. "There is so little at stake...I think Dancing with the Stars depends more on the personality [of its contestants] than just about any other reality show out there," the professor said.
If it's easy to imagine ABC casting Hamilton to fill the older gentleman role played by O'Hurley last summer, then it's harder to imagine the gambit will work. "You can't script that kind of thing," Thompson said of O'Hurley's emergence as a fan favorite.
While Dancing can't be scripted, it can be formatted. As such, the new season, like last, will pair amateur dancers with professional dancers. Four of the pros are vets of the show: Jonathan Roberts (previously teamed with Rachel Hunter), Edyta Sliwinska (survivor of Evander Holyfield), Ashly Delgrosso (late of Joey McIntyre) and the ponytailed Louis Van Amstel (harsh taskmaster of Trista Sutter).
Alec Mazo, who made a dancing queen of Monaco, and Charlotte Jorgensen, who made an Astaire of O'Hurley, are not noted as returning. ABC didn't return a call Friday seeking comment on their MIA statuses. Likewise, there was no word on first-season cohost Lisa Canning. Only Tom Bergeron, with whom Canning was paired during the summer, was announced as a host for the new season.
O'Hurley diehards, meanwhile, are advised that their hero will be back in spats come January: As a star of Broadway's Chicago.
Are you gonna watch?