'DWTS': At The Halfway Point, The Next To Go Was...

I've said it a thousand times and it stands true: Thank god for Tivo. Tuesday night's elimination round on Dancing with the Stars was a miserable hour of dastardly filler, including performances by teen fish-lips Selena Gomez, Train and (heaven help us) the Macy Stars of Dance (granted, with ever-fab Sheila E.). We were offered re-caps, re-caps of re-caps, the slow & painful "You're safe!!" couple by couple, and enough commercials to blind a seeing eye dog.

Surprisingly, both Melissa Gilbert and Gladys Knight were deemed "safe," despite consistently low scores (mind you, the way this is all determined is awfully suspect: It includes the judges' call, in addition to audience votes)... William Levy & Cheryl Burke: safe! Okay, I can digest food now... And then we come down to the "bottom two": Gavin DeGraw, who really needs to be booted; and Jaleel White, who will always be Urkel to meese.

Fast Forward... blah blah blah... which leads to the final 2 minutes of the show... where the bottom two couples have a dance-off duel. Zzzzzz... And at last, after finishing near the bottom every single week, Gavin and his silly hat are history, by a unanimous judges' decision.

That leaves eight couples for the DWTS competition... and we're pretty much where we started, with Katherine Jenkins and William Levy in the lead. Man, this is a drain to watch... but so redeemed by seeing Will's fame grow—and abs displayed—week after week.

Next week it's Motown: and how fab that Gladys Knight gets to stick around for that one. *