As I mentioned earlier, I got my enthusiasm back this season - not sure why, but there it is. Nicely put, twickster.
So that’s it? A ten-week season and no one has anything to say?
OK, in response to the TV Guide article, what’s wrong with nice? Some of us like nice people and nice shows and that’s one of the reasons I like Dancing With the Stars. If I wanted to watch viciousness and backstabbing, I’d watch Survivor.
Kristi did deserve to win. I’m also glad they brought the other contestants back and let them dance.
Next season I’d like them to have the contestants doing the same dance to the same music again. It makes it much easier to compare them. I also wish the audience wouldn’t boo every time the judges said something critical, but that’s been a problem all along. The scoring itself has been a bit odd at times, but that’s been mentioned here before. Finally, could we please see less hip hop and more ballroom in the freestyle? Not all of us like hip hop dancing.
I’m in for next season, though.
I also liked how nice this season was. I liked the same-music cha-cha (although it would be nice if they would pick a standard dance next time, given how latin-heavy the finals are otherwise). I am totally sick of hip-hop in the finals (although Kristi’s was at least well-choreographed and well-executed) - why couldn’t Jason do a dance he’s really good at, like foxtrot or quickstep?
I was impressed that I did not see even fleeting disappointment on Jason’s face before he went to congratulate Kristi when the winner was announced (Edyta looked disappointed for a moment, although she did a good job of controlling it). He is definitely a class act.
I echo everything Siege says, and especially the highlighted part.
I also don’t care for all the big production numbers during the results. They decrease my enjoyment of the show. The kind of dancing I want to see is ballroom. Lifts? Don’t like 'em either.
Oy! - I wasn’t talking about dancing ability. I meant popularity and name recognition. Remember, the judges’ scores are only half of the total. There have been a lot of contestants who got the big scores were it mattered and lasted far longer than they would have…remember Jerry Rice? And before anyone says that it doesn’t make a huge difference, there’s a difference between a star and a legendary iconic world-class solid god ultra-megastar, the latter category of which Rice and Smith are firmly ensconced in.
all - I guess there hasn’t been much discussion because there really hasn’t been much to discuss. We all knew who the favorites are, and none of them had an inherent enormous advantage over the others (though I have to agree that the closing 60 made it really hard to vote for anyone else). If I have any regrets, it’s the same thing I’ve been grumbling about from day 1, the fact that some very entertaining personalities had to take the walk when we’d barely seen them. If this is going to be a showcase of the best of the best, I say cut out the bottom half entirely and let the real stars duke it out.
Even so, all things considered, this is the most entertaining reality show out there, mainly because it isn’t taking itself too seriously yet. I hope now that Yamaguchi’s win put that one pro’s two wins in perspective. You got the right partner, dear, that’s all there is to it. That’s always all there is to it.
Yes, up until the halfway point, give or take a few episodes, prior reputation can be a factor, athough they seem to weed out most of the really bad dancers early on no matter how well they are liked.
But in the latter half (more or less) of the season, watchers have gotten a feel for personality of *all * the stars, not just the ones they knew coming in. At that point, it becomes for most people a combination of quality of dance and how the viewers like the people’s personalities as presented on the show itself. Otherwise how do you account for a Tony award winner with no movie or TV background, and a Chilean actor whom few people here have heard of making it to the semi-finals? (Of course I hadn’t heard of either of them either, but I’ll bet you more people know their names better than either Mirissa’s or Christian’s.)
Further, while Rice and Smith may well be god mega-stars among footbal afficianados, the fact is that I’d never heard of either of them, and I’ll bet that most of the largest demographic group of watchers (presumably women in their 30’s on up) hadn’t heard of them either, or only in the vaguest sense.
Popularity and per-existing fanbase have kept a few people in for longer than they should have been if it were based strictly on skill, although the first two or three I’ve seen have always been truly the worst dancers of the bunch in the four seasons I’ve watched. But after six or so weeks of exposure to all the dancers, people get a stronger idea of personality than they had before, and then insofar as popularity as opposed to skill affects the voting at that point, it’s the degree to which the audience likes them as presented on the show that has the greatest impact.
And again, I maintain that no one wins the finals without being *arguably * the best dancer in the batch (see my previous post for an explanation). The sole exception I can think of is Sabrina last season, and I honestly think that was due to the ‘diffused responsibility’ situation - everyone assumed Sabrina was a shoe-in, and so figured their votes could safely go to someone that voter thought might be eliminated before s/he wanted him or her to be. I don’t have any numbers, but I’d bet you good money that the votes were more closely in line with the judges’ marks this year than they had been before.
I agree that audience voting should be, if not eliminated entirely, then weighted much less heavily than the judges’ scores. But on the whole, the audience has done surprisingly well, and I really can’t fault much they appear to have done, this season in particular. Their biggest sin has been to keep in the Sara Evanses and Jerry Springers longer than they should have, but even so they were cut out in the middle of the pack rather than the end.
So on to more interesting stuff. Think Derrick is shtupping Shannon? I don’t think Morman boys, even the good ones, have quite the restrictions on sex before marriage than the girls do - like most religions that address the issue at all, things like that are condemned in women and winked at in men. So I think it’s entirely possible from that standpoint. It never would have occurred to me, though, if it hadn’t been for Shannon’s joking threat that he’d go alone tonight. Maybe it was calculated, but it sounded an awful lot like a slip in front of the camera.
Well, Sara wasn’t cut by audience votes, but by her messy divorce. I was very afraid that she would win despite her crappy dancing. But after having watched Season 5, I now think she would have turned out much like Marie Osmond - there until the finals, but placed third.
Of course, there was the first season, when Kelly Monaco “won” over John O’Hurley, based solely and exclusively on audience votes – as indicated by the uproar over the results and the necessity to run a rematch, which John won, easily. They tweaked the scoring then (no, I don’t recall the details) to prevent someone from winning solely based on audience votes.
Of course, that was Season One, when a lot fewer people were watching, making it easier for a clacque of soap fans to skew the voting. At this point, the show is popular enough that no single fan base can completely subvert the voting process.
From what I heard on Carolla’s radio show (he and Julianne spent their final 25-minute rehearsal together - 5 minutes dancing, 20 minutes gossiping about her brother), not only are they doing the deed, they are cohabitating. :eek:
:eek: :eek: :eek:
Nothing to discuss, DKW!?!?!?!
I just did some searching about them, and they led me to You-Tube, where I watched a few of their ballroom dances. Damn, Shannon wasn’t much good at Latin, but she could ballroom dance so beautifully! Those coltish legs and non-existent hips really worked under a long flowing evening gown to create beautiful lines, and she used her arms beautifully.
Oh, and the living-together business seems to be reported across several outlets, but they all seem to come from a single unnamed source. But I would think that having offended Julianne (whom he sincerely seems to have liked) once by actually mentioning that she was Mormon - gasp! - Corolla wouldn’t have said that on his show if Julianne hadn’t said it. So presumably it’s true. How about that?