Our 'Dancing with the Stars' correspondents Chuck Small and Lenni G will be back on the job for us with recaps throughout Season 12. Chuck gives us his thoughts on tonight's episode.

With next week's semi-finals coming up, tonight will be the night that shows which stars really have a shot at the mirrorball -- and which one fell just short of contention. Tonight, each dancer has two individual performances, including the return of the "Instant Dance" -- the feature in which the star and the pro find out what song they're dancing to less than an hour before they hit the floor.

Tom Bergeron and Brooke Burke kick things off, and Tom is oddly off-balance, making a crack about Brooke's spray tan after Brooke talks about the Instant Dance format that sounds like a complete nonsequitur. Hope the rest of the evening isn't as odd.

We've got two hours to finish "Unfinished Business" and the last four teams standing are all worthy.

First a glimpse at the past bad endings for the teams: For Team Aspie, it was the lost passport. For the sistah sisters, it was the need to pee. For the Globetrotters, it was a penalty. And the father & daughter failed despite prayer.

The Globetrotters leave the Matterhorn first, heading for the warmer climes of Rio. From there they are to take a tram to some famous steps and find a tile that looks like a route marker. They want to make it past this 11th leg because that's where they fell short last time.

North Carolina moved a step closer to its second “American Idol” tonight as Scotty McCreery was named one of the Final Four finalists of this, the show’s 10th season.

The Garner High School junior is less than three weeks from the May 25 finale. Scotty has reached the highest spot for a Tar Heel resident since Season Five of “Idol,” when Chris Daughtry made the Final Four. The sole “Idol” winner from North Carolina is Fantasia Barrino of Season Three. (Raleigh’s Clay Aiken was second in Season Two.)

Scotty won praise this week for the variety he showed in his two Wednesday performances – Montgomery Gentry’s “Gone” and Elvis Presley’s “Always On My Mind.” On tonight's show, Scotty joined the other finalists for a version of The Turtles’ “Happy Together” that showcased – in a bad way – how different their five voices are.

Our 'Dancing with the Stars' correspondents Chuck Small and Lenni G will be back on the job for us with recaps throughout Season 12. Chuck gives us his thoughts on tonight's episode.

Preceded by a one-hour recap of Monday night, tonight's results show feels especially padded, with two musical guests (James Blunt and Nicki Minaj), Wayne Brady in the Macy's Stars of Dance segment and 17- year-old ballerina Patricia Zhou in a spotlight segment.

Tom Bergeron asks the judges what dance they want for the encore. (I actually wouldn't have been surprised to see Kendra/Louis.) The repeat dance goes to Team Chelsea, and the team does at least as well as the night before. But Mark Ballas continues to outdance his tmmates, and it gets old fast! Mark's not much of a team player.

Our 'Dancing with the Stars' correspondents Chuck Small and Lenni G will be back on the job for us with recaps throughout Season 12. Chuck gives us his thoughts on tonight's episode.

We're "celebrating ballroom greatness," Tom Bergeron and Brooke Burke say, in the introduction to tonight's episode. We'll see. Sixteen-time world professional Latin champion Donnie Burns is a guest judge, saying, "Nobody but nobody does show business like you Americans." (Fawn much?)

The remaining six competitors are dressed in teams in extremely garish outfits. Team Chelsea, evidently inspired by Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Barry's "Catwoman" outfits, are Chelsea Kane/Mark Ballas, Romeo/Chelsie Hightower and Ralph Macchio/Karina Smirnoff. Ralph is feeling fish out of water because he hasn't done the cha-cha yet and he's older than his teammates. Romeo and Chelsea are trying to help Ralph make the dance look sexy. Mark is pushing everyone to stay on the beat. Romeo and Chelsie are grinding a bit.

Folks who know nothing else about India and nothing else about Buddhism still invoke the notion of karma.

The Globetrotters may only understood it on the "My Name Is Earl" level, but karma certainly seemed their friend.

We're down to five teams at the Matterhorn. Team Aspie leaves first. They head to a heliport where they will be assigned flights in five-minute intervals and get the clue for a secret location.

Many of us continue watching "The Office" out of some misplaced sense of obligation.

Limping through its seventh season, the gang at Dunder-Mifflin has grown stale, leaving you to wonder what the heck is Will Ferrell doing sleepwalking through his string of appearances as the supposed new boss of the Scranton branch.

But when it came time to say farewell to Michael Scott in Steve Carell's final episode Thursday night, the show managed to pluck the proper bittersweet notes in sending him off in an unexpectedly low-key goodbye.

This week's guest correspondent is Raleigh lawyer (and longtime "Survivor" aficionado) Damon Circosta:

Part of the secret of "Survivor's" endurance is that it continues to explore universal human emotions. While top-running crime dramas such as "The Mentalist" and "NCIS" explore the darker side of human psychology, there is only so much emotional range to explore in a cop drama. "Survivor" runs the gamut.

There is hope ... and then it is crushed. There is power ... and then it is usurped. On any given episode, a contestant can go from euphoria to despair at a moment's notice. In order to excel at this game, it pays to not get too invested in it. You need to care, but you cannot care too much. You need to bond with your fellow contestants, but you cannot bond too deep.

In other words, to win at "Survivor" you need to stay on an even keel, and even then you still need a little luck. According to this observer, here are where the 10 folks still in the game stand. (Six on the Murlonio tribe and four on Redemption Island, including the two newest folks sent there this week -- Ralph and Steve.)

Our 'Dancing with the Stars' correspondents Chuck Small and Lenni G will be back on the job for us with recaps throughout Season 12. Lenni G gives us her thoughts on last night's show.

I am so confused. Never in all my life have I thought of the brothers Hanson singing their immortal "MMMBop" as representative of "guilty pleasures". Well maybe it's the MMM part as in, "MMM, I love candy, both dark chocolate and eye." Let's move on.

It's said that after having babies nature allows women to forget the pain so that they might bear another child.

That's not true of all painful experiences. Memory, in most cases, serves an important function. It helps to stop us from making the same mistake twice.

On the other hand, no pain, no gain.

After our non-elimination leg, we're in Salzburg and Team Aspie gets to leave first. But first we get treated to another scene of their joy at winning the 2012 Ford Focus. I don't think this product placement is as effective as the Snapple plug. I wanted to buy the Snapple; I am not buying a Ford Focus.