We're now three weeks into Oxygen's new weight loss/dance competition, "Dance Your Ass Off." And while it's not quite the campy fun I was hoping for, it's also not the exploitative nightmare I feared it would be.

The set-up: 12 overweight Americans with a wide range of dance training are paired with professional dancer/choreographers and shake it to a different style of dance each week. Their performances are graded by a panel of judges - the wildly inconsistent Mayte Garcia, actress/comedian Lisa Ann Walter (love her), and dance instructor/lifestyle coach/dreamboat Danny Teeson - and those scores are added to the percentage of weight each contestant loses each week to determine who goes home, and who advances for a shot at winning $100,000. And hopefully end up a lot skinnier and healthier in the process.

The dances thus far have ranged from disco to pole dancing (kind of a cruel theme to foist on these folks in Week 3, although most of them did an admirable job with it), and the dancers themselves have done everything from inspire and delight to embarrass themselves and make me cringe. But as we whittle down the least the talented among them (the first two boots were exactly right, this week's, not so much) things are getting more promising.

Here's the breakdown of the dancers, in order of their performances from this week:

Shayla: Totally amazing. This girl can move, and not just as a "big girl" - she can move well for ANY size. And she seems to be doing well on the weight loss, so good for her. Also, totally gorgeous.

Reuben: Keeps dominating on the weight loss, which is to be expected. He's a guy - we lose weight more easily than women - and he came in weighing more than 300 pounds. But I find him unlikable, and ridiculously over-praised by the judges. That said, I fully expect him to be around for a while. He's got dance background and is losing weight in double-digits nearly every week.

Trice: Absolutely love this woman; she has incredible energy. Her dancing is a mess, and this week was by far her worst, but I want for her to succeed. She was so infectious that first week -- she literally did not stop dancing the entire time she was on camera, even when getting her results.

Miles: He's so hammy, but he's got some moves, and is likable. His seduction face during last night's stripper number was...disarming. Of all the guys in the competition he's the one I'd like to see go the farthest.

Pinky: I think she's an amazing dancer, and she doesn't get nearly the credit she deserves from the panel. She can actually dance, and she hits her moves hard. Her routines are almost always the most complex, and last night she was extremely sexy. She's a tiny thing, so I suspect the weight loss is a big problem for her. But I'm pulling for her. She's one of my favorite contestants.

Brandon: I wish he could take his exercise seriously and improve his attitude, because he's probably the best guy dancer on the show, and I would hate to lose him. He's not trained, but he's got great natural rhythm. It's so weird to me that someone in such terrible shape - he's got a litany of serious health problems, and his blood sugar number was so high he was almost banned from boarding the plane to the show - could take his health for granted. ESPECIALLY when he's on a show with the express purpose of losing weight. I think I want him to get healthier more than Brandon wants it.

Tara: She's gotten consistently better week after week. I also think she has one of the more limiting figures among the women, so good on her. I figure she'll probably be a mid-range contestant, but she is clearly trying.

Alicia: Disaster. She's so desperate to be liked, I find watching her exhausting. Add in last week's completely ridiculous screaming temper tantrum and...yikes. She's probably the worst dancer left on the show at this point (it's between her, Tara, and Trice). But to her credit, her dancing was better this week. It was also the porniest number of the evening, but at least it was more fluid than her previous efforts.

Karla: She was great in Week 1, but overconfident in Week 2. There's also a pervasive air of desperation about her. I think she's naturally a jokey kind of gal, which means pole dancing was not the genre for her. She probably used the pole better than anyone else. Unfortunately for her, her male partner worked it even better than her.

Mara: I adore Mara, I really do. Her confidence the first two weeks was inspiring, and that bitch shakes everything she's got, and she works it. She's probably one of the bigger girls on the show, but good god damn if she isn't awesome on that dance floor. It broke my heart to see her in the Bottom 2 this week, but I was thrilled that she was spared.

Ultimately Karla went home, which I'm ambivalent about. She was certainly not the worst dancer on the show, but she also was getting more uncomfortable with each subsequent week. I'm just glad my darlings Trice and Mara were spared.

Next week: Latin!