Dancing with the Stars always get pretty crazy during the episodes where pop culture is embraced. For the second week of Season 23, the show brought back TV Night, in which all of the performers danced to the instantly recognizable themes from some of television's most iconic shows. Ramin Djawadi's stirring theme for Game of Thrones was used in a most fabulous fashion, with Amber Rose as the Khaleesi to partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy's Drogo. Check it out!
Hot diggity Drogo, that was pretty awesome. While it's definitely true that the art of dance doesn't need any flair or gimmicks in order to be effective, it's hard to make a waltz more interesting than setting it within the world of Game of Thrones. Even if this isn't really canon or anything. There's fire! There's darkness! There's smoke! Oh, and there's dancing, too.
Amber Rose makes a fine Non-Daenerys, just as Maksim Chmerkovskiy looks quite intimidating in his Drogo get-up. I wouldn't have questioned anything had this routine also involved Maks pouring molten gold on someone's head, although I would have questioned the judgment of everyone involved with the show. For their sensual efforts, Rose and Maks earned 24 out of 40 points, which was the same score they earned last week, even though the judges all seemed to be more impressed this week. It's a good thing there weren't any dragons involved with this performance.
This many years along, Dancing with the Stars should probably be showing its age a bit more, but it's still quite a popular show, and figuring out a way to tie one of TV's most-watched dramas was a really smart choice. In fact, Game of Thrones wasn't the only mega-show to get its theme used. James Hinchcliffe and Sharna Burgess did a paso doble to Bear McCreary's theme from The Walking Dead, while Babyface and Allison Holker rocked an Argentine tango to the X-Files theme from Mark Snow. Vanilla Ice, meanwhile, followed up last week's shenanigans by getting funky with a foxtrot to Frank Sinatra's "Love and Marriage," the opening song for Married with Children.
The producers for Dancing with the Stars were rounding up a Dothraki army for tonight's episode - or at least the standard studio security version - to try and avoid untimely interruptions similar to last week's, when protesters rushed the stage after Ryan Lochte's dance. Thankfully, nothing so weird happened. But Lochte and partner Cheryl Burke did dance to The Muppet Show theme, which could count as weird if you try real hard.
Is it wrong that I enjoyed that so much? The two of them going under the curtains is classic. Say, why haven't there been any Muppets on this show? I think there's a conspiracy. And I blame the Lannisters for it.
Dancing with the Stars airs Monday nights on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET. To see when some of those previously mentioned TV shows will be coming back, check out our fall premiere schedule.
