SueTube – Let’s talk TV with critic Susan Young

It’s starting to look more like the Waltz of the Wounded than Dancing with the Stars.

Even before the competition started, every tabloid in town posted screaming headlines and video about the Kim Kardashian’s bout with a hotel room coffee table. The glass broke, and Kimmers received a nasty slice on her big toe. Her pals over-reacted by saying there was so much blood, it looked like a war zone. Actually, it looked more like someone got a bad paper cut. But the little princess played it for all it was worth.

Who can forget poor Kim getting wheeled out of hospital, vowing to return to DWTS? You would have thought she was the last soldier coming out of Iraq, ready to back to fight al Qaeda with her bare mitts.

I’m calling this season the Curse of the Kardashian.

The season has only been on the air for a little more than two weeks, and KK’s curse is in full force. Her first victim was comic Jeffrey Ross, but you probably didn’t mind because he was such an obnoxious oaf who deserved to be booted off first. JR suffered a scratched cornea while rehearsing with his dancing partner Edyta Sliwinska, who poked him in the eye with her acrylic nails.

And this was the season fans were hoping to see more of Edyta, the queen of the barely there costumes. Instead, she was sent home after JR and his entire family donned glitter eye patches. JR and Edyta quick-stepped off into the sunset.

KK’s curse landed briefly on Karina Smirnoff, who sprained her ankle on the morning of the show’s premiere last month. Judges barely noticed the hitch in her giddy-up compared to the awkward fox trot she performed with celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito.

And is it the curse or the spirit of Marie Osmond that has Toni Braxton looking like she’s ready to faint at almost every turn of this competition? Sure, put a woman with a heart condition in a live dancing show and see what happens.

But the full fury of the KK came last week, when Gold Medalist Misty May Treanor ruptured her Achilles tendon while practicing the jive dance with partner Max. It was an automatic DWTS exit card, but even worse, it could hamper her volleyball career.

On Monday, viewers watched the video of the rehearsal that resulted in Treanor’s injury. The loud pop could be heard, then Treanor eventually began feeling the intense pain which she compared to being hit in the back of the leg with a baseball bat. How crazy is it that an athlete like Treanor could get hurt that badly dancing?

While fans fretted about Treanor’s fate over the weekend, another dancer went down. Derek Hough, who suffered a back injury last season, was walking backwards during a rehearsal when he tripped and hit his head on the ground. He blacked out and the paramedics were called. But he survived to come in first with the judges on Monday.

But after seeing the wicked little exchange between him and dancing partner Brooke Burke, we’re wondering if BB might have put a little hex on blondie.

Even the queen of the daytime soaps, Susan Lucci, horned in on the KK curse. She showed up with an ace bandage on her ankle, saying she tweaked it a little. The judges said they noticed a wincing when she did her lively jive with partner Tony Dovolani, but she still got relatively low marks.

With Misty May Treanor out, rumor has it KK will be back on DWTS. Was this her diabolical plan all along?

Is there nothing or no one to combat the Curse of the Kardashian? We’re betting on octogenarian Cloris Leachman, who has been letting curses fly out of her mouth from the beginning. She’s sure to give the censors finger strains from hitting that mute button so many times during the live shows.

Cloris, it’s up to you.