It hasn't been a model season for Dancing with the Stars.

The hit ABC show gave Albert Reed his walking papers Tuesday, making him the second contestant to be burned by the ominous red spotlight.

The Abercrombie & Fitch cover boy's Dancing demise came as a shock both to the judges, who had awarded his quickstep a cumulative 21 and dubbed him the dark horse of the competition, and the audience, which was obviously sorry to see the fresh-faced 27-year-old go.

"I'm a little stunned, but we did the best we could," Reed, who dedicated his Monday performance to his late grandfather, said after hearing the news. "That's all you can ask for."

So, unlike last week, when viewers gave the low-scoring Josie Maran the boot, the at-home votes didn't coincide with the judges' critiques this time around.

Reed was joined in the bottom two, however, by Wayne Newton, whose score of 15 was the lowest of Monday night.

"Too slow for a quickstep," Bruno Tonioli said of Mr. Las Vegas' latest spin around the floor, which made up with charm what it lacked in speed and technical proficiency.

Avoiding the glare this week was Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, whose energetic mambo actually looked as if it deserved better than the 18 it received from the judges.

Tonioli compared him to "a bulldog chasing a squirrel," and Carrie Ann Inaba pointed out that his "face was dancing twice as hard" as his body, but the 49-year-old entrepreneur, who ended up in the bottom two last week, was in the clear Tuesday.

And although she has been told to work on her ballroom posture, Jennie Garth was still standing tall at the end of the night, despite the spill she took with partner Derek Hough during her quickstep, which apparently only endeared them to the fans at home.

Meanwhile, the stars to beat are still Helio Castroneves and Sabrina Bryan, who switched places on the leaderboard Monday but otherwise remained toe-to-toe in the judge's minds.

Castroneves' encore-worthy mambo merited the season's first 27, not to mention comments like "real deal" and "exhilarating hot rod" (the latter being Tonioli's, of course).

And Bryan's quickstep left her hip-hop days in the dust. The bubbly blonde turned in a "blistering performance," each step "filled with vibrancy," according to the pleasantly surprised judges, who had wondered whether her success with the Latin cha-cha would extend to the stricter ballroom stylings of ballroom.

Marie Osmond, who will be 48 later this month, was right up there with the young punks with a 24. While it's her performance abilities that are winning her extra kudos from the judges, Inaba called her "one hot cougar" and Len Goodman deemed her mambo with partner Jonathan Roberts "absolutely great."

New mom Melanie Brown, who couldn't have been too unhappy to learn that tickets for an upcoming Spice Girls reunion concert in London sold out in 38 seconds, also was pleased to discover she wasn't going home.

Once again, there was a five-score pileup in the 21 zone, with Reed, Garth, Cameron Mathison, Jane Seymour and, in an improvement over last week, boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.—who ceased throwing partner Karina Smirnoff around like a rag doll and instead turned in a "very light, very fluffy" quickstep—all getting the triple-sevens treatment.

Missing from the floor tonight was Seymour, who had jetted back to England to be with her family after finding out that her 92-year-old mother, Mieke Frankenberg, had passed away.

Tom Bergeron announced that the former Bond girl will be returning to dance next week, presumably still with the intention of making her mum proud. The graceful Brit was the first star to be declared safe when the results started pouring in.

Queen Latifah also was on hand to perform a couple jazzed-up standards, including a cover of the Mamas & the Papas' "California Dreamin'."

Ten contestants remain and will hit the floor again next Monday.