It was interesting that the bottom four were all guys.
Agree that Aaron’s support is eroding quickly – I don’t think he’ll necessarily be the next to go, but I don’t think he’ll make final four, either … so who will?
My guesses? Mya, Natalie, Donny & Mark.
Maybe substitute Kelly for Natalie.
Mya and Donny certainly. But between Joanna (Leggy Model), Melissa (Sabrina), Natalie (Olympic swimmer), Kelly (sweet and vulnerable Osborne), and Louie (cute snowboarding hobbit), it’s anybody’s guess. Besides, Aaron could recover; his dancing is better than most. Much as I admire Mark (Iron Chef), I don’t think he’s got much of a shot, but I could be wrong.
I went on the YouTube to see Louie’s earlier performances, because this week seemed so much worse than I remembered. I noted that yes, he did actually appear to make an effort during the first three weeks. However, that led me to Natalie’s rumba last week to In the Air, which in turn led me to this. The DwtS band is good, but it just can’t compare to the real thing. Oddly, toward the end, there’s a shot of a guitarist (I think) who looks amazingly like my mental picture of Albus Dumbledore.
Yeah, Mya and Donny are the only sure two. I think the most likely to be the other two are Natalie, Kelly, and – believe it or not – Mark, who I think is better than he’s getting credit for. Depending on the luck of the draw and how hard they work, I could also see Joanna or Kelly there – Melissa, I think, has peeked, and the Hobbit has shown he’s not really in it to win it.
I agree with this 100%. I think that Mark has a lot of potential. I was annoyed at the judges’ comments to him this week, though: “You look so much better when you don’t focus on picky details! I’m going to downgrade you because you missed a picky detail, though.” If they’d just omitted that last sentence and given him the same score, it could have been great for building up his confidence. Instead they probably torpedoed it.
I’d say the judges scores will favor Mya, Natalie, Joanna, and Kelley. But I don’t know about their fan bases. Donnie will stay longer than at least one of them based on fan base over judges scores. The rest… I don’t know.
Hopefully Chuck or Michael will go soon - I don’t think the new dancer is doing much for him.
I want Kelly to stay in at least long enough to end up dancing to one of her dad’s songs…as done by the DWTS band. The “Crazy Train” quick step or “War Pigs” paso . I know she’s her own person with her own identity. But it would amuse me
Uh, amarinth? Chuck has gone, as of this week.
HA! Per Louis von Amstel on Twitter, this coming week we will see Kelly Osborne’s Paso Doble to “Crazy Train.” And her father will be there to watch. I’m actually looking forward to it a lot.
Dang it! I missed half of them. The Yankees distracted me.
Two of my favorite dance styles (to watch) are Argentine tango and Paso Doble, so I was really looking forward to tonight’s ep.
For me best tango was Mya/Dmitri, but I have to give props to the Barbie Doll for a well-executed if not flawless routine. Donnie certainly brought the performance, but he seemed really wobbly, especially at the beginning. I was surprised by the high scores.
Best Paso: Mark/Lacey. I know everyone seems to hate Lacey, but for me she most consistently pushes the outside of the envelope on costuming and choreography, and this week Mark finally seemed to add some character to his precision and athleticism.
Kelly did OK, but was noticably less crisp in her movements than her partner.
Natalie and Aaron (!) seemed reasonably solid, but definitely a step back from the top performances.
Nobody came off as horrible, but Michael Irvin and the Hobbit, although much better than their dire performances last week, still are weakest of the males, and Melissa seemed to just get shoved around the floor by her partner.
As far as I’m concerned, the group Hustle never happened. Never. Happened.
My guess for the Final Four: Natalie, Mark, Mya, and Donnie.
I missed most of the dances so I don’t feel I’m up enough to comment on the competition but one thing I can say based on the group Hustle-- I sure hope that Aaron the prancing pony gets gone soon.
Pretty much a toss-up this week. The scores were way too similar (including what I thought was a generous score for Michael Irvin, and an incredibly generous one for Donny Osmond) to make a difference. I think the judges were just caught off guard. This was the first season ever that all the obvious no-hopes went first, so they have to sift through contenders a lot sooner than expected. Best to take a mulligan and try to get a read on who has a shot at the final.
Michael, he’s managed to avoid looking horrible, he’s playing his heart out, but he simply does not have the grace to go far, nor enough star power to make up for it. Jerry Rice is widely believed to be the best wide receiver ever; Emmitt Smith has a Hall of Fame career and the all-time rushing yards record. Irvin? Mostly a good player on a dynastic juggernaut, a second-tier NFL legend. He’s not going to steal anything.
Still too long for me to watch in its entire, so I’ll just add that I’ll never understand why anyone thinks American Woman is appropriate for a contest like this. Look, how much brainpower does it take to realize that, whatever the woman in question is supposed to be, the singer DESPISES her? Is this really the song you want for a man and a woman performing together? Sheesh…
Dumb song choices aside, this really is turning out to be a pretty good season. Barring Mya not making the final (which would be truly shocking), I’m definitely going to be here to the end.
Side question (not worth its own thread): Could someone explain to me just what the heck happened at the end of season 1? Okay, first Kelly Monaco was declared the winner, then the result was overturned and that other guy won, then (I think) the overturn was shot down and now Monaco is the official winner. I guess. And what made the original result invalid in the first place? Monaco won only because her fans rocked the vote? News flash, that’s an unfortunate but perfectly valid result. Votes count. That’s how this contest is set up. And if the fix was in, why weren’t there lawsuits, or at least the threat of one?
That’s how the contest was set up – there was a mathematical loophole there that the producers hadn’t realized. My understanding is that the way the audience votes were weighted the first season allowed ballot-box stuffing, effectively – number of votes per person, maybe? Damn, it’s a while ago, and I’m definitely not a math person. Sorry. I’ll shut up now.
Missed the show last night – doesn’t sound like I missed much …
I like the Paso as a dance, but it is a very specific dance about bullfighting. It needs that specific rhythm, and it needs to sound Spanish. Heavy metal, hard rock, or semi-classical pieces like an aria from Phantom or O Fortuna from Carmina Burana don’t cut it, and the people look stupid trying to do a Paso to such music. Even March of the Toreadors really didn’t work, and that was certainly the closest they got last night to good music for a Paso. If they’re going to use Paso as one of their standard dances, they need to suck it up and use the music they use in actual Latin Dance competitions.
On the plus side, they managed to give all the Tango dancers Tango music for a change. That was a pleasant surprise. Is there any difference between a Tango and an Argentine Tango except that lifts are allowed in the latter?
One of the audience shots when Joanna (Leggy Model) danced was of a girl who looked almost identical to her, except that her hair was darker. That must have been Marta Krupa. Man, those parents must have been doing something right!
I’ve come to the conclusion that the Hobbit is actually a dwarf. Well, not technically, since he’s taller than 4’10", but I think he has the body proportions and facial charactaristics often associated with dwarfism, but only very mildly. Obvously, it either hasn’t been a problem or he’s overcome it, given his Olympic caliber athleticism. They gave him his highest marks this season for his tango, but I didn’t think it was as good as his rumba a couple weeks ago. It wasn’t bad, just not particularly good.
The judges seemed to give better and better marks as the show progressed, even though the dancing wasn’t any better. I don’t know what that was about.
Aaron did very well, IMHO. He danced earlier in the show, and I think his marks suffered for it. But I think the producers have written him off as off-putting to the audience, and probably are encouraging the judges to go hard on him. He got a twenty-four, which was the same as Kelly and Joanna, neither of which was as good as him, I thought.
In the first season, the final was two couples, not three and the way the scoring system worked at that time, the judges votes didn’t matter at all. The winner was decided only by the audience votes. (In the current system, judges tend to make their votes their votes irrelevant by giving everyone in the final a 29 or 30, but could submarine a couple by giving them a “3.” Then, it didn’t matter, if the judges had given one couple a 30 and the other a 3, the 3 would still win with 51% of the audience vote) Kelly Monaco won. People were as angry as you can get over a mirror ball trophy. ABC saw the controversy as a way to get another week of solid ratings and scheduled a dance off with different rules. O’Hurley won.
They probably refer to Alec as the season 1 winner because he’s come back to the show and Charlotte (John’s partner) hasn’t. Again, though, mirror ball. It doesn’t really matter to anyone.
I got my Crazy Train dance. I’m happy.
You are the cape.
The cape?
I’ve just watched the last two episodes in a couple of days (skipping last week’s results show since I could look up the results) and I have to say this week was a lot better than last week.
The two-steps all seemed to be dripping with contempt for the dance, and were generally terrible. The lambadas were more respectful of the dance itself, at least, but there wasn’t a lot of dancing in them. The charlestons seemed generally okay.
The tango really made me want to take tango lessons. Shame I’m fat and uncoordinated. The Pasos were a little weaker than in previous seasons, I thought.
The hustle, well, the rehearsal footage of the hustle was quite interesting. The performance, err, not so much. Couldn’t they have just called it The Lift and got it over with?
Fred Astaire’s gym shorts, am I actually going to be the one who posts this week’s result? Never saw this coming in a million years.
Anywhy…
Natalie and Alec are out. Aaron hangs on by his fingernails for the second week in a row.
Man, the judges were not at all happy with that result (Carrie Ann took it especially hard). I can’t stress this enough: This isn’t American Idol, and these are not overpaid hecklers. They expect to have some control over the outcome, and it’s a direct affront when a favorite leaves too early. I remember that after UFC 2, John McCarthy was so upset over powerlessness, he pretty much singlehadedly enacted sweeping reforms in the very next tournament. Could DWTS have a similar shakeup?
If they didn’t do it after Master IdontwannaPhere, then they never will.