Bless her foul-mouthed soul, but I think it's time for Cloris Leachman to leave the competition on Dancing with the Stars. She has cheated death for too long on the show.

Of course, outside of the context of Dancing with the Stars, I want this octogenarian to live forever. She gives me hope that there is so much to look forward to as life progresses into your eighth decade, and that old dames can and should steal the show.

I don't think anyone will argue that she's done a great job for an 82-year-old. I would challenge any of you to be better than her when you reach that age. She has entertained us with wacky routines, full of broad humor and visual gags. Her antics after her routines have been off-the-wall funny, especially in the first week when she propped her leg up on the judges' table and shoved her cleavage into Len Goodman's face.

Backstage too, Cloris seems to be keeping everyone in stitches. She regularly ignores Samantha Harris' awkward questions and instead brings up non sequiturs about hair and eye color. I envy her completely nonchalant attitude; she really doesn't give a flying hoot about how she's portrayed on camera or how people might interpret her curses.

All that said, however, I think that she needs to go. The novelty of hearing the constant bleeping coming out of her mouth has worn off. Last week, she and Corky Ballas performed a very serious and traditional paso doble, sans wacky fun humor, and it turned out to be such a boring affair. Without her physical comedy, Cloris is just a bad dancer.

Next on my chopping block is Rocco DiSpirito. I hope he goes home soon. Remember way back before the season started, I wrote,

“While Rocco does genuinely seem like a good, earnest person who will try hard and put in the effort, I'm not terribly convinced that he has any kind aptitude for dance. I'm hoping I'm wrong about this, but he looks incredibly awkward in these pictures. His tentative posture reminds me of Steve Guttenberg from last season, and that's not exactly a good thing. If Rocco's lucky, he'll make it to week three, but I'm not expecting him to get even that far in Dancing with the Stars.”

I'm going to pat myself on the back for predicting this one. I think I was spot on in my assessment of his dance abilities, if I do say so myself. To his credit, he does try awfully hard every week. If the scores were given based on effort, then he would be doing much, much better. But he just exudes a self-consciousness that he can't let go of.

Since there was no elimination this week, this week's judges' scores will be added to the new scores next week. Who do you think will be eliminated?


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