Predicting who will go home on Dancing with the Stars isn't always easy, and with a double elimination and a dance-off, it seemed like this week might be particularly hard.  But thanks to the judges' very strict scoring, it's fairly obvious what will happen tonight on Dancing with the Stars.

Combining the solo and marathon scores, there's a huge six point gap between fifth place Donny Osmond and sixth place Kelly Osbourne.  That kind of gap is almost insurmountable in terms of audience voting, so right away, it's almost guaranteed that five of the nine remaining couples on Dancing with the Stars are safe.

Thanks to their scores, Mark Dacascos, Mya, Donny Osmond, Joanna Krupa and Aaron Carter can all breath easy.  This is especially good news for Aaron.  After being in the bottom 2 for two straight weeks, a double elimination seemed certain to end him.  But with an impressive 25 (the second highest solo score of the night) and a third-place finish in the Mambo Marathon, his 33 puts him at least 8 points ahead of everyone in the bottom four, which should spare him from being anywhere near the three lowest combined scores.

However, this leaves four couples all in danger.  The lowest team will go home, the next two lowest will compete in a dance-off, and one of those four will be completely safe.

Since Michael Irvin does so well with the fan vote, he will almost certainly avoid the very bottom, and with the highest score of the bottom four, Kelly Osbourne is likely safe as well.  That leaves Melissa Joan Hart and Louie Vito, going in with a tied score.  I have to assume everyone finds Louie and Chelsie Hightower as charming as I do, and that Louie's flip off the judges' table was worthy of votes, so I predict Melissa Joan Hart and Mark Ballas will be at the very bottom at automatically go home.

That leaves the dance-off.  If Kelly is there, she would almost certainly win out over Louie or Michael, since the judges genuinely love her, so I don't think she has anything to worry about.

Given Michael's fans, I predict he will somehow be safe once again, leaving Kelly and Louie in the dance-off, with the judges sending Louie and Chelsie home.

However, the best hope Louie would have is if he and Michael are in the dance-off, and since Michael was the first one out of the marathon, Louie might just have the edge.

MY PREDICTIONS:
Melissa Joan Hart and Mark Ballas will get the lowest total and go home.  Louie Vito and Chelsie Hightower and Kelly Osbourne and Louis van Amstel will compete in the dance=off, and Kelly will be the winner, eliminating Louie Vito.

FANTASY TV USER PREDICTIONS:
-Michael Irvin, 37 percent
-Louie Vito, 28 percent
-Melissa Joan Hart, 16 percent
-Aaron Carter, 14 percent

The other five couples are under 3 percent each, and these numbers indicate most people are optimistic about the judges getting rid of Michael Irvin, and there's so much residual hatred for Aaron that even getting an incredibly high score won't deter people from picking him.

POLL RESULTS:
-Michael Irvin, 33 percent
-Melissa Joan Hart, 25 percent
-Louie Vito, 22 percent
-Aaron Carter, 13 percent

In a poll of BuddyTV users after the episode, the results are roughly the same, with the other five couples all receiving less than 3 percent each.  However, it's clear that, based on the episode, there's a greater likelihood of Melissa going home.



-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of ABC)