Yeah, at third place in the judges’ ranking, even with first place in the viewers’s ranking (which he must have been, to make it to the final two), he couldn’t knock off more than one of the people ahead of him. And IAMAM.
And I agree with annieclaus’s analysis – Stacy and Tony really completely shot themselves in the foot (sic) with their final free dance – that is the point at which they lost. It was time to dance a crowd-pleaser and, uh, please the crowd – and they didn’t.
Sorry – should have previewed – the “he” there is Jerry.
I meant #3 overall, ie, given the boot.
You make a good point, annieclaus; I hadn’t looked at it in that context. I was looking at it as a cumulative sort of thing in which the best dancer at the end would be the one to win.
I still think she (and Lisa, too, perhaps for many of the same reasons) got a raw deal, probably as a result of being just too damn gorgeous and too naturally talented and getting too much attention; but looking at things the way you describe them does make the loss seem less egregious. I hope Stacey is viewing it in the same way.
Thanks for the insight and a new point of view. 
…and to you, too, twickster. I hadn’t seen your post when I submitted the above.
NP, Starving Artist. I think why people are taking it in stride (sic) is that the finals this time seemed to happen a lot more fairly than they did last time – when two couples, not three, made it to the final dance-off and the obviously less qualified team won, due to their pre-existing fan base (soap star vs. John O’Hurley). This time, I think we all see that the final three were all there for a reason – Jerry, yeah, it’s about his fan base, but he also improved tremendously, and he did great for someone with zero dance background, which each of the other three in the last four had had – so it was less blatantly ridiculous.
Plus, of course, my boy Drew won. 
I third this assessment. And the more that I saw of that lame routine, the more hostile I became towards it. Drew and Jerry deserved to pull ahead after that. Had Stacy and Tony switched Sunday’s dance with Thursday’s, they may well have won because their (samba?) last night was great.
And SA, of course it’s part popularity contest. Anytime you have people phoning in, you’re going to have results skewed. The person most screwed by this method, IMO, was Giselle Fernandez. To have her go before Master P was a crime against the arts.
I agree, even though I hadn’t been watching the show then. I only saw a snippet or two of last year’s contest and came to this one late (I think it was the episode after Tatum O’Neil bit the dust). I suppose that if I’d been in on it from the very beginning I’d have had a better understanding of what to expect. I’m glad I posted my little rant though, because you and twickster and annieclaus have done a good job of explaining what happened. I feel much less cranky about the outcome now that you’ve all done such a good job of ‘fighting (or at least minimizing) my ignorance’ on the subject.
Thanks.
It’s funny to think, but I probably passed by Cheryl Burke in the hallway at some point when she was in high school. I was the sports editor of a local paper at the time and covered quite a few events there.
Congratulations to Drew Lachey for pulling it off; considering that skill alone guarantees nothing in reality TV, that says a lot.
Saw Kiebler’s disco. This is just speculation, of course, but this looked like the point where doing all kinds of physically demanding maneuvers in 4" heels finally jumped up and bit her. Why she didn’t switch to flats or at least pumps when she started hurting and crunch time was coming up, I don’t understand. I also agree with Starving Artist’s sentiments about overall performance, and I honestly wonder how the last-man-standing format can prove to be a failure time and time again and still be so lavislhy adhered to.
Well, the right guy won in the end, so that’s well and good, and I did get to see some minor-to-respectable celebrities perform feats I wouldn’t think them capable of, so…eh…I’ll give it a pass.
As for the future…I don’t know. At first I wrote this off as just another contrived game show. Then my mother started watching, and she was too interested for me to just shoot her down. Then I started watching, and once Master P left, wouldn’t you know, it was actually watchable. And some of the performances were downright memorable. I definitely see potential here. But there are a lot of things that need to be fixed, not the least of which is the endless filler. (A few minutes of filler, fine. The majority of the show, unforgivable.) More than anything, I’d like the competitors to start treating it like the light, fluffy, forgettable entertainment than it is, and not some huge life affirming experience.
Let me put it this way: American Idol has become a huge success. Skating With Celebrities is toast and will go down as a failed experiment. This is somewhere in between. Where, we’ll see.
It’s interesting to compare the US version with the British series that spawned it, particularly in how some cultural stereotypes may contain a grain of truth. The British amateurs struck me as much more self-effacing about their skills, or lack of them, than the Americans, who always were going on about how they intended to work, work, work and win, win win. The judges even more snarky on the UK show than the US version, yet it seemed to me the British contestants would tend to apologize for their poor performances more often than they spluttered defiance. And lastly, the UK audience seemed to vote more for the most skilled dancers rather than in sympathy for those who couldn’t keep up. I’ll admit this may be somewhat subjective on my part, but the differences seemed clear.
The most recent UK series, BTW, was won by a Jerry Rice-type sports figure, cricketer Darren Gooch, but he was clearly a better dancer than Jerry and there were no obvious ringers he was competing against in his group. OTOH, judge Len Goodman, who has worked both shows, more than once said that Drew and Stacy were the best amateurs he’d seen in any of the series, so there you go.
Total agreement here. The BBC didn’t seem to have any trouble wedging the episodes into an hour or 90-minute format.
I also had the constant impression that ABC was making the competition up as they went along, and I’d gladly see less of that. I’d also add that they might want to look into getting another band leader and singers. Yeesh. And next time, fer cryin’ out loud, leave Barry Manilow under whatever rock he was found.
I dunno, I kind of enjoyed all the ridiculous luvviness of it. I’ll definitely watch again, if and when they do another.
Or Darren Gough, as he prefers to be called (although a former teammate of his is Graham Gooch, so that maybe where the mistake came from)
Having watched most of the UK series in which Gough won, the one previous to that featuring Breakfast TV presenter Natasha Kaplinsky, and this season of DwtS, I agree with Len, although with a slight caveat. While Drew and Stacy are far and away the best and most natural of the celebs I’ve seen, the enormous improvement shown by Gough to go from being considered a rank outsider to champion made for much greater entertainment. YMMV, of course.
Actually, Jerry could have been second in the viewer rankings and still made the final 2 (Stacy gets 2 points from the judges, and 1 from the fans - Jerry gets the opposite and they tie - Jerry’s fan vote victory breaks the tie).
Incidentally, it’s a good thing they had 3 people in the finals (last time was 2 right?), or the judges scores would have been useless.
Man, I must have been tired last night. I sat there staring at his name on the BBC site and still typed it wrong. Sorry.
counts on fingers – sighs – takes off shoes and counts on toe – sighs more deeply
Hey, I said I Am Not A Mathematician!
And that’s exactly why they had three people in the finals this time – last season they had two and it didn’t work very well.
If that had been the scenario, Drew would’ve been in 3rd place with 4 points (3 from the judges, 1 from the fans) and would’ve been booted. Since he wasn’t booted, he therefore must’ve finished no worse than 2nd in the fan voting, and therefore was a lock to win.
No, Drew would have three from judges and two from fans, since we’re postulating that Stacy would have gotten the fewest fan votes, getting 2 and 1.
And how geeky are we, that we’ve turned this into a theoretical math problem?
blissful sigh I love this place!
Ok, let’s go the whole hog geeky. There are only six cases, after all:
Judges pts: 3 for Drew, 2 for Stacy, 1 for Jerry
Audience votes:
Case A: 3 for Drew 2 for Stacy, 1 for Jerry
Totals: Drew 6, Stacy 4, Jerry 1.
Case B: 3 for Drew, 1 for Stacy, 2 for Jerry
Totals: Drew 6, Stacy 3, Jerry 3
Case C: 2 for Drew 3 for Stacy, 1 for Jerry
Totals: Drew 5, Stacy 5, Jerry 2.
Case D: 2 for Drew, 1 for Stacy, 3 for Jerry
Totals: Drew 5, Stacy 3, Jerry 4
Case E: 1 for Drew 3 for Stacy, 2 for Jerry
Totals: Drew 4, Stacy 5, Jerry 3.
Case F: 1 for Drew, 2 for Stacy, 3 for Jerry
Totals: Drew 4, Stacy 4, Jerry 4
As soon as we learned that Stacy was eliminated in Third Place, we can eliminate cases A & C & E. (Because Jerry would have been third.) We can also eliminate Case F because Drew would have gone out in third place, having gotten the lowest audience vote in a three way tie.
Which leaves only B & D, and in both of the Drew wins.
Which is why I relaxed as soon as they announced the third place results.
Yup, that’s what I had, too. Thanks, SBS.