In short, "Dancing" is the perfect second chance for Mills, and she is the perfect "Dancing" diva... Mills dances troubles away

In short, "Dancing" is the perfect second chance for Mills, and she is the perfect "Dancing" diva: a celebrity shaking off a cloud of bad publicity and willing to brave a disability and ballroom dance in front of more than 21 million people.

She also proved quite charming off the dance floor, saying that her sparkly, sequined yellow and hot pink ball gown made her feel like "an ice cream sundae."

ABC ruthlessly advertised her disability with promos that zoomed in on her bag of prosthetic limbs and drumrolled the possibility that she would fall on her face. Mills was more down-to-earth, saying in interviews that as a person who learned to ski with one leg, she was fairly confident that she could hold her own on the dance floor. She said she hoped her performance would inspire young people who had lost a limb.

And one of the strengths of this peculiar and irresistible show is that even though Mills' story trumps all others, by evening's end, she blended into the larger ensemble.

"Dancing" combines the retro cheesiness of "The Lawrence Welk Show" with the artful kitsch of "Strictly Ballroom." It brings together a colorful array of celebrities who seem plucked from an episode of "Murder She Wrote"; this season, the contestants include a 1980s supermodel, Paulina Porizkova; a basketball star, Clyde Drexler; a former anchor of "Entertainment Tonight," Leeza Gibbons; and the actor who played Cliff the Mailman on "Cheers," John Ratzenberger. He declared he was dancing on behalf of all baby boomers. Younger viewers got an Olympic speed skating champion, Apolo Anton Ohno.

All the contestants are admirably disciplined about rehearsing and staying in character. "You can take the boy out of Kentucky," the country singer Billy Ray Cyrus said. "But you can't take Kentucky out of the boy." Drexler, the basketball star, obligingly put his cha-cha lessons into hoop terms. "I wasn't really trying to do everything in practice," he said. "I live for the game."

The Czech-born Porizkova tugged on the Iron Curtain. "Do not question the system," her partner told her. Porizkova replied, "That's what they said in the communist countries."

But the deeper appeal of "Dancing With the Stars" is simpler. Dancing, particularly ballroom dancing, is a lost art that everyone has a vestigial feel for in his or her toes. The competition taps into that yearning and weaves around it a melodrama of perseverance, defeat and triumph over adversity -- or low expectations.

After Mills' performance, Bruno Tonioli, a judge, told her, "You have more guts than Rambo." Actually, what she really demonstrated is that Americans will always love a Rocky.

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