“The Superstars” Recap: Week 5

By Mike

superstars_week-5With Jeff Kent and Ali Landry being sent home (for the second straight week) last time, there’s just one more team to be whittled away before the finals next week. Our money’s on Lisa Leslie and David Charvet, who seem to be in jeopardy every single week. Their luck has to run out sometime, right?

There’s a tweak to the format this week, as the teams will compete in three events instead of two to determine who ends up on the obstacle course. That’s good news, since the other option would have been to cram the show with filler. The first event is the Watercraft Relay. Each team member takes a turn on a jet ski and blah, blah, blah. Is this really an athletic event? We don’t have much else to say, so here are the standings after one event:

1. Bode Miller & Paige Hemmis – 100 points

2. Kristi Leskinen & Maks Chmerkovskiy – 80

3. Brandi Chastain & Julio Iglesias Jr. – 70

4. Lisa Leslie & David Charvet – 60

Next, we move on Archery. Now this is what The Superstars is all about. Competitors can aim for targets worth two, four, six, eight or 10 points. Everyone does fairly well in the event except for Brandi, who mutters “gosh darnit” and “gosh dangit” about a thousand times as a result. She also suggests that Julio go for an “ocho,” just so her Spanglish doesn’t get rusty. Fortunately, Julio hits all kinds of ochos, saving Brandi from the last-place finish she deserved. The updated standings look like this:

1. Bode & Paige – 190 points (90 in Archery)

2. Kristi & Maks – 170 (90)

3. Brandi & Julio – 140 (70)

4. Lisa & David – 120 (60)

The third and final preliminary event is the Wall Climb. It’s another relay event, in which each team member scales a rock wall. It’s here that we learn that the Bad Boy of Ballroom Dancing, Maks, is afraid of heights. We also learn, thanks to Kristi’s congratulatory butt slap, that this event makes his “balls hurt.” Neither of those things prevents Kristi & Maks from winning the event and, with three first-place finishes tonight, they’re headed to the finals. Lisa & David, predictably, are headed to the obstacle course. A rubber match between Bode & Paige and Brandi & Julio will determine who joins them.

Unlike past weeks, tonight’s rubber match is not a rematch of the most recent event. Instead, we go back to Archery, and the competitors take turns until someone hits the 10-point target. After a very near miss in the first round, Bode sends his team to safety by nailing the target in Round 2. Brandi & Julio head to the obstacle course to square off against Lisa & David.

Brandi & Julio take the first heat, making our prediction at the beginning of this post look pretty solid. But then Brandi falls down twice during the second heat and yet another time during the rubber match, leaving Julio with little to no chance of catching David. So Lisa & David survive another week, and they’re headed to the finals next week. Who would have guessed that would happen at the beginning of the competition? Well, no one, since David was initially paired with Jennifer Capriati and Lisa with Dan Cortese. But that’s beside the point. It’s still surprising. Can they surprise us again next week? We’ll see …