4 weeks in and no thread yet? Is anybody watching anymore?
Every season I think I don’t care anymore and every season I get sucked back in.
The current crop of celebrities is possibly the most obscure yet, but there are a few recognizable names. As always, you get to know the ones you’d never heard of as the season progresses, and I’m really more interested in the pro dancers anyway.
I’ve found this season to be a lot of fun so far. Melora Hardin (Jan from “The Office”) is my favorite surprise; she’s crushing it. The WWF guy (“The Miz”) is entertaining. Jojo Siwa and Jenna Johnson are the first same-sex dance couple.
I am watching it. I can’t abide other scripted reality shows, but always make time for DWTS. Perhaps its the pure shamelessness of it all.
So far the biggest positive surprise has been Melora Hardin. I find Jojo to be one of the most annoying people on the planet, so the novelty of a same-sex couple is lost on me. I’m afraid she’s going to be there till the final show. To date all the people eliminated have richly deserved it. The real housewife is playing with house money, barely escaping elimination twice. Next week her time is up unless someone else really bombs.
She’s growing on me. Yeah, she’s 18 and still dresses and often acts like a tween, so I get where you’re coming from. I think that’s at least partly a persona for her fans, and party that, due to her enormous privilege, she hasn’t finished maturing quite yet.
But she does not seem spoiled or bratty, and there’s a thoughtful and compassionate young lady slowly blossoming there.
And that perfect 40 dance the other night was just great. Lots of fun, which is - or should be anyway - the whole point.
Oh, and speaking of enormous privilege, I was very surprised the judges chose to keep Olivia Jade over Mel C, who brought so much more to the show in every way. Olivia has been getting good scores but I don’t see it. Her dancing does nothing for me.
I’m following it for Melora. Her dad, Jerry Hardin and her mom Diane are old friends of the family. I hadn’t seen Melora since she was about five until a couple of years ago. Rooting for her!
Last Monday Horror Night and Iman and Daniella were a revelation. One of the best dances ever on DWTS. Iman Shumpert was not one of the accomplished dancers at 6 ft 5 he towers over his partner but together this dance just made the whole season watchable. Daniella has to be the best pro partner ever to play to his strengths and get a perfect score. I hope they’re in the finals, the Freestyle alone will be fire.
November 1 is Queen Night. I’m not a fan of themes but Queen Music lends itself well to the ballroom. There will be two separate portions of the night this time around, according to the press release.
Here are the songs and dances from the individual portion of the show:
Country singer Jimmie Allen and pro Emma Slater dancing the Viennese Waltz to “Somebody To Love”
Popstar and dancer JoJo Siwa and pro Jenna Johnson dancing the Tango to “Body Language”
NBA basketball star Iman Shumpert (“We Got Love Teyana and Iman”) and pro Daniella Karagach dancing the Paso Doble to “Another One Bites The Dust”
Beauty vlogger Olivia Jade and pro Val Chmerkovskiy dancing the Quickstep to “Fat Bottomed Girls”
Olympic gymnast Suni Lee and pro Sasha Farber dancing the Paso Doble to “We Will Rock You”
TV and film actress Melora Hardin (“The Bold Type”) and pro Artem Chigvintsev dancing the Foxtrot to “Killer Queen”
Talk show co-host of “The Talk” Amanda Kloots and pro Alan Bersten dancing the Jive to “Don’t Stop Me Now”
WWE superstar The Miz (“Miz & Mrs.”) and pro Witney Carson dancing the Foxtrot to “Radio Ga Ga”
Celebrity fitness guru Cody Rigsby and pro Cheryl Burke dancing the Foxtrot to “You’re My Best Friend”
Here are the relay songs, dances, and competitors:
I literally just discovered this thread. My family’s still watching, but at this point it’s simply something to fill the air on Monday night that’s slightly less stupid and corrupt than the NFL, and I had absolutely zero intention of starting the thread. Heck, you can pretty much copy-paste all the the gripes I had with the previous season, starting with how ridiculously rushed the 15-contestants episodes were.
It’s late and I need to get to bed. I’ll try to muster up some intelligent and/or original commentary tomorrow. For now, I will say that Not Lebron James is proving to be a surprisingly tough customer.
This is no doubt a tie-in to ABC’s Queen Sing Along special which airs Thursday night.
I agree with the judges on Melora - she needs to stretch a little more out of her acting comfort zone. My biggest disappointment is Suni Lee. Biggest surprise, by far, is Iman
The relay dances were a gimmick to keep Olivia on the show. She’s a good dancer but she doesn’t have a fan base and it’s questionable if she really should be capitalizing on the criminal activity of her mother. So she gets all 4 points? JoJo The front runner was in the bottom and they sent the wrestler home. Iman had an average night he did redeem himself on the Jive. He got some extra points for doing well. Next week is Janet Jackson night so I’m stoked that Imans swag will get him good scores. It would be cool for Iman Melora and Jimmie as finalists I’d be happy with any of those three.
Nah. They have to add a second round to fill out the time as the field narrows, and they’ve done this exact relay format before, if I’m not mistaken. And I’m not quite cynical enough to think the judges conspired to give their points to Olivia regardless of her performance. She did indeed do the best of the three.
Given how the other relays went, I find it suspicious that Olivia took all the points for a Foxtrot. Len the Ballroom judge could have given the point to Jimmy who did a full on Foxtrot instead of messing about with the Running Man that Val and Olivia injected. If she got less than 4 I’d be less inclined to think she needed al points to stay in. The better relay was the VWaltz everyone was given at least a point in recognition of their hard work. It doesn’t surprise me that the Jive relay gave nothing to the Wiz because the judges like to be right about who is going home.
Back in Season 12 the judges blatantly told the audience that they hated what happened the previous season and Brandi went home. So in Season 12 they[quote=“Wheelz, post:13, topic:952426, full:true”]
Nah. They have to add a second round to fill out the time as the field narrows, and they’ve done this exact relay format before, if I’m not mistaken. And I’m not quite cynical enough to think the judges conspired to give their points to Olivia regardless of her performance. She did indeed do the best of the three.
This, though, I agree with.
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Back at n Season 12 the show introduced dance offs to give extra points especially to ‘those good dancers who needed help because their fan base was thin. *They ended up giving an extra 15 points so Chelsea Kane could make the finals over Ralph Macchio
I get it. A while back, someone here linked to an article that explained in depth the ranking process with regard to fan voting vs. judges’ scoring. I’m not going to bother looking for it now, but it essentially claimed that the judges’ scores didn’t mean squat compared to audience votes.
Since then, they’ve tweaked things to give the judges more say, and I’m ok with that. It’s designed to keep the best dancers around longer, but it’s not a handout to any one particular competitor.
While the judges may have their biases, I highly doubt that they conspire to boost the scores of any one contestant over another, or to give all their bonus points to the same dancer. Yeah, in the end the show is meaningless fluff, but I do believe that the judges take what they do seriously, and would not rig the results.
I’m a bit more cynical. There is the road show where ticket sales are brisk if the winner joins the tour. Also the show is one huge commercial for Disney ABC - the closer you’re affiliated with what the show wants to sell the more likely you will be part of the machinations to keep you around - regardless of ability
When you look at some of the other dancers, there’s no way the judges see Olivia as the winner this season. And if they want to sell tickets to the road show wouldn’t they go the opposite way? Select the most popular dancers over the ones with better technique. For what it’s worth, I thought Olivia was head and shoulders better than the 2 she competed against.
What we see at home vs what the judges see is really different, which might be one reason the audience, both at home and in the studio, dissagrees with them. Mugging for the camera and doing dramatic slides into the camera are totally lost on the judges.