The major reason Dancing With the Stars uses a dance-off between low scorers to determine some of the people going home is to protect the better dancers, and make it possible for the judges alone to jettison a marginal performer with a crazy fan base. But the first dance-off of Season Nine ended with a majority of the judges voting to keep ex-Dallas Cowboy Michael Irvin, who has brought up the rear in the scoring most of the season but is benefitting from the traditional DWtS love of the NFL; instead of the slightly more agile but definitely less famous snowboarder Louie Vito.

Dancing with the Stars through the seasons

Before the two men danced off, however, the week's lowest scoring dancer was eliminated: onetime teen actress Melissa Joan Hart. The Sabrina, the Teenage Witch star was played up as a preseason favorite due to her bond with young women who recall her Hollywood days and now relate to her as a mother. But in a season with numerous "fan favorite" types, Hart needed more dancing chops than she turned out to have. While she worked hard and even tied for the night's highest score two weeks ago after a Charleston, Hart usually looked a beat too slow on the floor. It didn't help that Mark Ballas, a champion in two of the preceding three seasons, appeared to lose interest once it was clear Hart didn't have the ability to win. His visible disgust when he and Hart were announced in the bottom three was embarrassing to his partner.

And then it was time for the dance-off, preceded by both Irvin and Vito bringing all their best "it's now or never" cliches. Irvin and Anna Demidova went first with the samba, and while it was hardly expert, he did show that he's improved noticeably in recent weeks. The routine was speedier than what we were seeing from him early on, and he has remembered the importance of personality. Irvin never forgets to thank his fans for still being on DWtS. Vito said that he and Chelsie Hightower were doing the jive instead of his higher-scoring Argentine tango because he had more fun with it. This may have been a mistake, since he had trouble keeping his timing with the less structured jive. Hightower powered her way through the short routine with so much energy that she nearly pulled her partner across the finish line.

But in the end, while Bruno Tonioli voted to keep Vito, both Len Goodman and Carrie Ann Inaba chose Irvin. Vito leaves Season Nine after six weeks and in eighth place, which is about five more weeks and several places higher than most had him ticketed for when the season started. Given his lack of fame, he had to make a quick mark in order to stick around, and the key to his tenure was his partnership with Hightower. Both are small but powerful and barely into their 20s, which gave their pairing an aesthetic appeal that was only helped by Vito's evident crush on his partner. But eventually, his athleticism stopped covering for the fact that there wasn't a lot of content in his dancing.

The night also featured performances by the Cuban-born band Tiempo Libre, a rare results night act that actually performs dance music; and Taylor Swift, who continues to prove every time that she sings live that it's a good thing she's already famous, since she could never get anywhere on American Idol with her utter lack of charisma.

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