Dancing with the Stars kicked off its sixth season last week with a two-night premiere.  The first night, the six male stars performed, and the six female stars followed on the next night.  Early on, the women dominated the leaderboard, showing that they really want to win this season.

Tonight, all 12 teams came back to perform either the quickstep or the mambo, and things played out pretty similarly to last week's performance.  Read on to see where the teams lie so far based on the judges' scores.

1. Kristi Yamaguchi and Mark Ballas

I was really worried that Kristi would be too shy and buttoned up to give a really convincing Latin performance, but she and Mark knocked it out of the park again tonight.  She was superbly precise and their mambo was fast-paced and nearly perfect.  They scored a 27 tonight, giving them a two-week score of 54 out of 60 and the lead.

2. Mario and Karina Smirnoff

Four points behind Kristi and Mark, Mario and Karina come in second place with 50 points.  They danced a great quickstep tonight.  Mario has a lot of natural talent in dancing and it will be very exciting to see how much he improves over the season.


3. Jason Taylor and Edyta Sliwinska

Jason and Edyta may have had the most impressive improvement this week.  Their foxtrot last week was pretty good, but this week, Jason really became a dancer.  He shed his inhibitions and loosened his hips to show us a fantastic mambo.  The judges rewarded with him a fantastic 27 out of 30, making his two-week total a 49, just one point behind Mario.


4. Marlee Matlin and Fabian Sanchez

Ever the inspiration story of this season of Dancing with the Stars, Marlee and Fabian are well on their way toward winning America's hearts.  Marlee may be deaf, but as judge Carrie Ann Inaba pointed out, she has a really remarkable musicality to her dancing that so many of her competitors lack.  Despite the fact that Fabian decided to add some mambo flavor to their quickstep routine, they earned a very respectable two-week score of 46 out of 60.


5. Shannon Elizabeth and Derek Hough, Priscilla Presley and Louis van Amstel (tied)

Shannon and Derek danced the quickstep tonight, while Priscilla and Louis danced the mambo.  They earned a 24 and a 21, respectively, for the performances tonight, making them tied with 45 points apiece.


7. Cristian de la Fuente and Cheryl Burke

Cristian and Cheryl's quickstep tonight was on the unmemorable side, but it was good enough to keep them smack in the middle of the pack.  This is not a terrible place to be, as long as they can continue to improve on technique for next week.  Their score of 20 tonight, combined with last week's 21, gives them a total of 41 out of 60.


8. Marissa Jaret Winokur and Tony Dovolani

Marissa and Tony might just be the most likable couple on Dancing with the Stars this season.  Marissa is so bubbly and fun and enthusiastic, and all of these are qualities necessary for a good quickstep.  They had a few glitches in keeping their hops and skips in sync, but the judges loved her.  They also got an amazing response from the audience, which might even be more important than what the judges thought.  Overall, they have 39 points out of a possible 60.


9. Adam Carolla and Julianne Hough, Steve Guttenberg and Anna Trebunskaya (tied)

Both of these teams danced the mambo tonight, and both failed to elicit high praise from the judges.  That's too bad, really, because I thought that they did improve from their performances last week.  They are tied for ninth place with 34 points each.


11. Penn Jillette and Kym Johnson

Penn is a huge hulk of a man with ginormous feet.  How can someone so large possibly dance the light and energetic quickstep?  Not too bad, actually.  He had great energy tonight, but was woefully lacking in precise footwork.  It must be hard to be precise when you have size 16 feet, or whatever Penn's shoe size is.  He and Kym have a two-week score of 33 out of 60 and are currently in 11th place.


12. Monica Seles and Jonathan Roberts

Finally, at the bottom of the pack are Monica and Tony.  Monica really had a hard time getting into the sultry spirit of the mambo, earning another low score of 15.  But she had a great attitude about it and said that she was having a great time learning how to dance from Jonathan.  This team rounds out the bottom of the leaderboard with a score of 30 out of 60.

Don't miss tomorrow night's Dancing with the Stars results show to find out which male star and which female star must hang up their dancing shoes and say good-bye.



-Debbie Chang, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of ABC)