Week 9 of ‘Dancing With the Stars’: Sometimes talent isn’t enough (VIDEO)

Right about now, most female “Dancing With the Stars” fans are hoping that they look as good as Lea Thompson does when they’re 53.

And then they’re remembering that they don’t look as good as Thompson does now and are voting for Tommy Chong.

Thompson, the well-preserved former mother of Marty McFly and a former ballerina who was a bit too graceful for her own dancing good, was voted off of “Dancing With the Stars” on Monday night. Her ouster will be as close as the show gets to a “shocking elimination” this season because the divide between the good dancers and the not-as-good and downright bad dancers was crystal clear from the season debut.

The shocking part: Chong survives another week despite low scores, flying on “Chong Airlines” by the seat of his charming pants. His safeness was declared at the beginning of the episode, meaning that the elimination of one of the truly talented couples in the final six loomed over everyone all evening.

Thompson, who was the next obvious choice to go after Chong, was as graceful in her elimination as she was in her performances, thanking her man-crush partner Artem Chigventsev and insisting she was excited to return to her day job, acting on “Switched at Birth.”

This week, the stunt that producers used to fill up the second hour was the “trio challenge,” which required the couples to dance with a third partner, and that produced some of the most exciting, fun-to-watch performances of the season.

I loved, loved Alfonso Ribeiro’s sexy paso doble to “Turn Down for What,” which he performed with Witney Carson and her dancing friend Lindsay Arnold. During rehearsal, the matching blonde youngsters teased that their combined age did not equal his current age of 43.

“I think I need two girls in the paso,” he deadpanned to the camera. “I’m that much man in the paso.”

Sadie Robertson also performed a memorable dance with partner Mark Ballas and pro Emma Slater. It earned her perfect scores despite her fallen face and insistence that she forgot her steps at the end and made up her own moves. As emcee Tom Bergeron quietly advised her, “They might not have noticed,” and they (the judges) didn’t.

And I truly enjoyed Chong’s silly samba, performed with his partner, Peta Murgatroyd, and pro Sharna Burgess. The ladies posed as scantily clad airline attendants and took turns with Chong jiggling suggestively to Jason Derulo’s “Talk Dirty to Me.” The judges could barely stop laughing long enough to deliver their scores (straights 7’s), and Chong delivered the best line of the night: “I’m using the Michael Waltrip formula: Surround yourself with beautiful women and hope no one looks at you.”

So what do you think? Will Chong outlast Robertson to advance to the finals? Do Bethany Mota or Janel Parrish have a chance of snatching the mirror ball trophy from charismatic Ribeiro? And will Erin Andrews succeed at bringing the jumpsuit back?

This story was originally published November 10, 2014 at 10:54 PM with the headline "Week 9 of ‘Dancing With the Stars’: Sometimes talent isn’t enough (VIDEO)."