Tom Bergeron is a very wise man.
It’s interesting to compare the format of this show to American Idol. At least in DWTS the judges have some influence over the results. Whereas Idol: the ratings juggernaut and cultural phenomenon, whose winner is guaranteed much more than a tacky trophy, and whose judges dominate the show and the off-season conversation – the judges have absolutely no effect on who moves on each week.
They could also just allow people to vote and the judges decide between the bottom two who goes home…? Bristol was in the bottom two more than once and could’ve been eliminated that way.
She was only in the bottom two because of the judges. If it were up to the voters apparently she would always be in first place.
I rewatched all the finalists dances this weekend. Bristol has improved a lot since the disastrous Monkey dance. I think it embarrassed her enough that she finally focused and worked harder. I’m pretty sure all the controversy and bad press will get a lot of new voters supporting Kyle or Jen. I think Bristol is toast tonight.
I’m really rooting for Jen. Kyle has me very worried. He could easily steal a win. Technically Kyle isn’t much better than Bristol. But, Kyle is one heck of an entertainer. His fan base seems to be growing.
Come on Jen! For the win. 
During Bristol’s rehearsal footage she’s wearing a “Salty Dawg” shirt, and the “S” is covered with black tape. Any idea at what that mean’s? A search on Google shows Salty Dawg is some sort of shop, but presumably if there was some sort of advertisement issue the entire name would have been blurred out, like Derik’s shirt was in Jennifer’s rehearsal footage.
The Salty Dawg is a bar in Homer, Alaska.
Whew, I finally got my votes cast. My Connection kept resetting. Took almost 15 minutes to get 5 votes cast. The website must be flooded tonight. I kept running to my pc during the commercials and got err done.
The website isn’t letting me sign in: “Processing – please wait” forever and ever. 
Ah, there we go, it only took 10 minutes.
"The Salty Dawg is a bar in Homer, Alaska. "
Ah. My bad. But that still doesn’t answer why the “S” was covered up. Is there some sort of in=joke to “Alty Dawg” that I’m missing? Is she trying to say she’s the alternative? I’m confused.
Grrrr. Not only can I not sign in…I just posted a post bitching about it, and the hamsters ate it! That hasn’t happened in a long time.
Okay, maybe it’s not DwtS or SDMB. Maybe it’s my computer?
No, I think the ABC site is completely overloaded. I was planning to stuff the ballot box (since my twitter and facebook accts. are under different emails, neither of them the one I use at ABC), but it wouldn’t load either of those.
I did get five votes in for Jennifer, though.
WAG here. I think covering the “S” removes the thorny problem of free advertising. DWTS is pretty anal about blurring out T Shirts with any copyrighted logos. Removing the first letter may have kept the producers happy.
Well, I am bummed…45 minutes of “Processing…please wait.”
I wonder if this means they have made changes, or are the Palinites just simply overwhelming the system, or is everybody else overwhelming the system in reaction to the Palinites’ overwhelming the system the previous week? Gah!
As far as the dances - I’m not sure why Lacey chose hip hop for Kyle. It was fine, it’s just not my cup of tea for this competition (especially the worm. I hate the worm.) I liked his redemption dance.
Bristol seemed to be marking both of her dances. The jive didn’t seem crisp. And whoever chose the Cell Block Tango for her made a horrible mistake. Admittedly, that’s one of my favorite songs in a Broadway show. It does come with all of the baggage that Carrie Ann & Bruno mentioned (especially since it was in an award winning movie, people know what it’s supposed to look like). And even if they didn’t, the song is about hell having no fury like a woman scorned (or really pissed off) it requires drive and intensity and power and anger and … it’s an in your face song and Bristol has never shown any of those qualities in any of her dances. Why didn’t someone pick something nice and pleasant and nice for her.
I liked Derek & Jennifer’s dances.
I was so tired today I fell asleep and napped through the first set of dances, but thankfully I woke up for the second set. Although I do have a DVR so I could have just rewound…nah.
I agreed with the judges, at least for the second set of dances. Jennifer deserved to be first, Kyle second, Bristol third.
Even though I’ve never been disappointed in Kyle and Lacy’s performances I still feel that of the three Jennifer deserves to win followed by Kyle in second place and Bristol in third. Of course in actuality it should be Jennifer, Kyle, and Brandy competing, but, whatever.
It was definitely a Goldilocks set of freestyles: Kyle’s was too predictable (though I liked that Lacey threw in a few moves in holds to evoke ballroom here and there); Bristol’s was way too ambitious (and remember, amarinth, the freestyle is 100% up to the pro, including music, style, approach, etc.); and Jennifer’s was just right, and a hell of a lot of fun. Loved it when the two of them were up on the judges’ desk going to town.
Re: what was jamming the computers (and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn, the phone lines as well) is, I bet, not only the Palinites but the anti-Palinites. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person trying to get in an additional set of votes for Jennifer. If I’d gotten through on the other two accounts, I would have done a second set for Jennifer and then a set for Kyle.
You still can vote for Jennifer online now (until 11 AM), twicky. I just did, and had no delay or problems whatsoever.
I think Mark made a good choice in going for a tango with Bristol. Tango is a dance where the right music, precision of steps and a straight face convey all the emotion you need. That said, Cell Block Tango was probably not the best choice. It was too iconic, and there was too much free (i.e. non-tango, not in hold) time messing around with the red cloth. He’d have been better off going with the tango from Moulin Rouge (minus Roxanne), and just doing a slightly jazzier version of a straight Tango.
The redemption dances were all fairly good. Palin deserved, I think, three solid eights for hers, so the scoring wasn’t too far off for her. But I sometimes have to wonder if the costume department doesn’t have a little color-vision problem. The blue of Mark’s jacket was quite different from the blue of Bristol’s dress, and they didn’t work well together. I’ve seen that happen a couple of times before and wondered what the heck they thought they were doing.
Kyle’s foxtrot was much better, but I just didn’t care for his freestyle. Old-school hip-hop is not my thing.
But Jennifer’s freestyle was, to my eyes, not great. It’s not so much that there were too many tricks (although there were), but that the transitions to and from them were a tad awkward. The whole dance looked like a series of easing Jennifer in and out of acrobatics and tricks, and it deterred from the whole. When I compare that to the cha-cha she did last week, where she was driving and just worked it, I was disappointed. The freestyle wasn’t bad, but I didn’t think it was ten-worthy.
Well, we’ll see what happens.
Thanks! Ballot box stuffed – a total of 10 votes for Jennifer and 5 for Kyle.
Kyle (Foxtrot) – Lots of personality despite it being a slower dance. Technique looked strong.
Bristol (Jive) – I was having trouble even watching this given the horrible camera work, but I felt like her dancing was really flat-footed. Where were the flicks and kicks that I’m used to seeing in a jive? I mean, yeah, it was an improvement over the gorilla dance, but what wouldn’t be?
Jennifer (Paso) – Choreography: Did. Not. Want. That may have been a reaction to the music, but I thought it was mostly way too frantic. Jennifer executed it well, of course, but it was just weird. On the other hand, as a counterpoint to the frantic Paso that she couldn’t execute the first time, it was great to see her holding that together all the way through.
Also, Bruno needs a valium.
Kyle (Freestyle) – This was pretty much exactly what I was expecting. I really think they need to make the freestyle a little less free. There should be a greater requirement for actual ballroom elements. I really don’t understand why we get 9 episodes of a ballroom dance competition and then cap it off with a hip hop routine.
Bristol (Freestyle) – Whoa, whininess in her package. Her actual freestyle wasn’t bad – though it had some spots where it was a bit iffy. I did appreciate that there was more ballroom elements to it.
Jennifer (Freestyle) – I was wondering if they’d end up back at Dirty Dancing references. It’s slightly hard to fathom that she’s 50 and wearing that costume. I’d have liked to see more dancing and fewer tricks, but that’s a lost cause in the freestyle. At least there was some ballroom elements.