Cat "The Really" Deeley is delighted to see us. And I'm delighted to see her. Hello, Cat! And here are the top eight dancers, which is currently composed of six guys and two women. I can't wait for next week, when Cat will presumably have to say "Here are the guys ... and this is your girl!" But something seems odd about this opening dance. I can't quite put my finger on it.

Cat tells us that the dancers won't dance just once (insert crazy terrible electronic reverb that may be an actual mistake) but twice. Once with an all-star and once with a fellow contestants. What? Contestants dancing with each other? I like this innovation and think it could really shake things up!

Now it's time for the Shocking News. Alex hurt himself by dancing in some grainy rehearsal footage the previous night. Looks like a Russian number to me. But it doesn't matter because Alex won't be dancing tonight. Nigel reports that Alex got an MRI today and it looks like a ruptured Achilles tendon. That is probably bad news. Nigel claims that the new rules this season have already accounted for this: Alex is automatically in the bottom three this week and if he can't dance next week, he's out. So I guess that means whichever dancers are the bottom two in actual votes are the ones who are in peril of going home tomorrow.

Nigel goes on to explain that Alex was asked if it hurt, and he said "only in my heart." The audience goes "Awwwwww," but I'm afraid I laughed. I feel bad for the guy, but I'm pretty sure a ruptured Achilles tendon has plenty of physical pain to go with the emotional.

Oh, it's the all-star selection! Lauren opens a card that assigns her Cha-Cha with Pasha (that would be a good name for a show. It could be judged by Zsa-Zsa Gabor!) and Contemporary with Kent. So we're watching the draw but not the random assignation itself. Lauren says she's excited to dance with Kent because it will pull in the tweens. Kent's additional dance is hip-hop with Comfort. Then the rest of the dancers read us the names of their partners. It appears that Adechiké and Alex were doing Bollywood, not Russian. Billy tells us that he's not excited about doing African Jazz with Jose because Jose won't shut up about Lauren Gottlieb's butt. Jose is theatrically appalled by this, and it's quite amusing.

Okay, enough stalling. Cha-Cha with Lauren and Pasha. And Jean-Marc and France. Lauren is worried, but I expect that Pasha will help make it awesome. The song is that "Telephone" by Lady Gaga and Beyonce. Speaking of which, I think we're in a new golden age of awesome videos for shitty songs. The dance is energetic and for once the girl is showing more skin than the guy. The cha-cha involves a lot of dramatic pointing to the wings. Lauren pulls off a Cirque du Soleil-level backbend near the end. Nigel likes Lauren's maturity, by which he means her boobies. Lauren explains that she looked mean by pretending to be a tiger. Mia claims that the dance was "pure murderation", which doesn't mean anything.