DWTS10 Week 9 Power Rankings
Wow. Best semifinal show I’ve seen thus far.
While none of it was truly shocking for me (as usual, the judges threw out every paddle lower than 8, and even Tom’s announcement about the voting wasn’t that earth-shattering), I was entertained at every moment – even Chad brought his A-game tonight! I think it was John who said it earlier, but I’m gonna agree – this is the strongest season of DWTS yet. It will definitely be interesting to see who comes out on top. I don’t think all’s said & done yet…it very well could come down to the freestyle, with as close as some of the scoring has been, and the quality of the dancing. But on with the predictions of who will make the final and who will fall short!
1.) Evan & Anna – I honestly vacillated between Nicole & Derek and these two for the top spot, but when it comes down to it, I think Evan’s slide into 2nd last week (and the rallying of his fans) and the power of the money spot this week will give him a slight edge over Nicole. It was definitely nice to see him finally open up this week, without losing any of the technical value of the performance…he’s finally managed to strike a balance. I did, however, notice that there was an awful lot of open work in his foxtrot – I’m a little surprised Len didn’t chide him a bit more for it. I think he definitely had the strongest solo work of the contestants tonight; that paso solo was right in his wheelhouse, and really showcased his skating spins & jumps, and I think they lucked out getting such a dramatic (and popular) song for their paso. I’m calling these two as a shoo-in for the finale, with Nicole & Derek close behind.
2.) Nicole & Derek – Is there any dance this girl CAN’T do? Each week, I’m just astounded at how FLUID she is – it was especially noticeable in her Argentine tango. Every move just flows effortlessly into the next, which is what I think takes her a step above the other contestants, who seem to struggle with continuity. And I’ve got a confession to make: I’m a HUGE Purple Rain fan. Definitely one of my top 10 favorite movies – so of course I adored the cha-cha homage to Prince. 😀 Agreed with Len – thought Nicole’s solo was a little less cha-cha and a little more fluff & fun – but all in all it was a fun, entertaining little ditty nonetheless. And I agree with Heidi about their eerie sense of synchronization – they never seem to fall out of step, even if Nicole loses balance a bit. If these two aren’t in the finale, it will be a huge, huge tragedy, and I’m pretty sure Heidi will send the producers some road kill in a box or something, hehe 😉 But I’m confident they’ll make it through, although I could see it coming down to them being in a faux “bottom 2” with Chad to create suspense.
3.) Erin & Maks – I think their paso tonight was the strongest I’ve seen Erin all season – no nerves, all attitude, high energy…I even enjoyed her solo work, despite what the judges said. The unfortunate thing is that I think she’d be in a 3-way tie with Evan & Nicole if she could overcome 2 things: her nerves, and her balance. I still see a certain “stutter” in her movements, like we did in her rumba last week, and I feel like she’s still getting incredibly nervous – which was really noticeable in her Viennese waltz. I almost feel as though the two are connected – she gets jerky and stutter-y when she gets really nervous. Thought the waltz choreo was pretty, but thought the whole walk to the stage and sit-down at the end took up too much time. I’m gonna call these two good for the finale, for the simple reason that, despite my disdain for Maks, I do think Erin deserves to be there – she’s progressed more than Chad in both ability and performance quality.
4.) Chad & Cheryl – I gotta hand it to Chad: he stepped up his game this week. It may not have been as noticeable as with the other 3 couples, but it was there. I found his waltz charming – it took me back to Michael Irvin’s waltz last season, which was a major turning point for me since I hadn’t been particularly fond of him up until that point – and Chad’s waltz had the same effect. Maybe not the most technically perfect or challenging, but it moved nicely, and had a soft, genuine feel to it. His samba could have been better, but it could have been a lot worse too – he gave it a pretty damn good try, considering that it is the hardest of the Latin dances. He actually moved, and did more than just let Cheryl dance around him…wasn’t crazy about his solo, but hey, it’s pretty hard to do a samba solo anyway. While I just don’t think he has the juice to overcome Erin (let alone Nicole or Evan) and make it to the finale, I am glad he will at least get to leave on a high note, rather than being booted off unceremoniously after two incredibly weak dances.
Can you believe there’s only one performance show left??? It feel like just yesterday I was in shock that Shannen got the boot so early and was praying for Kate to sent packing. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I’m actually gonna miss Chad a bit – he may have annoyed me with his lazy dancing and hushed practice voice, but there was something strangely redeeming about him in the end. Oh well…at least football season is only a few months away, and for once I might actually be kinda excited to see my boys in blue square off against ol’ Ochocinco 😉
Please goodlord i truly hope Chad goes home tomorrow….nothing against the man but the top three are to strong and well beyond him. The top three are the best that i can ever remember! Sigh i have such a soft spot for Evan and Erin it is hard for me to not vote for one of them ! Believe it or not i won’t vote until the finale!
One of those rare times I will agree with you Cassie – I sure do like Chad, but if he doesn’t go home and one of the other three does, well…I’ll be pissed. I really don’t like Maks anymore, but Erin deserves to be in the final with Nicole and Evan.
I agree with you guys that Chad should go home and I would be disappointed for Erin since she is the better dancer. However, I wouldn’t be totally pissed to have Chad in the finals. There’s something about Chad that draws you in. He’s just great entertainment. You never know what to expect next from him.
Dial Idol actually picked a couple they predict will be eliminated tommorrow. AFAIN that is the first time they have done so this season.
I think that Chad should be the one eliminated based on his dance abilities.
But, I won’t be shocked if Erin gets the boot. If that happens It’ll more than likely be the result of them losing votes due to some poor sportsmanlike behavior in blogs and interviews.
I had a discussion early in the season with another poster about Maks. We both thought that Mak’s partnership with Erin was a good one. And if the partnership continued on in such a positive manner that it could go a long way towards changing some of the negative opinions held by some viewer about Maks. But then they both started making negative comments about the judges and others in the competition during interviews, and tweets, etc. I don’t believe that I’m alone in thinking those actions were unwarrented.
Evan has such a an easy draw with his solo, with paso doble all you have to do is swing your cape around. With a cha cha, or samba it’s so much harder to think of choreography that fits in with the dance! Everything in evan’s paso I could see nearly all of it coming directly from his figure skating. I hope if he is in the finae, there is going to be a group dance, and I hope it will be a latin dance that will expose his lack of ability in real latin; I think I’ve heard it may be a salsa smackdown? Imagine that.
I want chad in the finale over erin. Maks keeps throwing nicole and derek under the bus in interviews and he doesn’t deserve to be in the finale.
i agree with u Karla usually i’m a fan of Maks but i was reaally pissed by his attitude this season saying that he should keep his mouth shut coz Erin is just a ringer as Evan and Nicole with her previous dance training! although Erin deserves to be in the finals she had grown and really improved (no more funky arms theese last couple weeks)! Evan should have no problem moving to the finale i just hope Nicole would too coz that was an amazing night for her and Derek they did an amazing job,and Derek even his head explods from choreography he never disapoints! so they Deserve to go to the Finals and i hope they’ll win it!!!
Tonight definitely had some surprises. Evan was just really incredible in his paso and his smile lit up the room for the foxtrot. The boy definitely came into his own last night. I hated the Purple Rain number. Not a huge Derek fan to begin with, but that did not have much cha cha in it. Nicole is technically an excellent dancer, but really don’t like to watch her. I thought both Erin and Chad were overscored. While they both have improved this season, I didn’t agree with either of their scores.
Who should go home? Chad is the weaker dancer, but can Erin overcome the NFL? And with both their fans rallying, could Nicole be in danger? Time will tell.
It’s interesting that dialidol was actually able to predict a couple to go home, Cori. The problem with dialidol is that it relies upon a large volume of votes for it to be accurate – a large volume which is easier to achieve when viewers have an unlimited number of votes (like on Idol), rather than a fixed limit (DWTS). With only 5 votes per line, that’s only 5 opportunities for a busy signal to get bounced back in a short time period, which may make it appear as though certain couples are getting a lot of votes, while others aren’t. Those using it may have been voting during peak times (right after the show ends) leading to an inflated numbers for some couples, or using it during off-times (middle of the show), making it appear as though certain couples just weren’t getting the votes. You also have to take into account the voting tendencies of those actually using dialidol – maybe more people using it were voting for Nicole, Evan, & Chad instead of Erin, leading to skewed data. There’s just too many variables involved for me to put a whole lot of stock in it…heck, dialidol hasn’t been particularly accurate for predicting the idol castoffs this season! But who knows – maybe this time they actually got a large enough sample to interpret the data definitively, and Erin & Maks are really going home. Guess we’ll find out! Although I’m still not quite sure why someone would go to the trouble of using dialidol to get their DWTS votes in – is it really that hard to keep hitting redial a few times to get your 5 phone votes? 😀
And I’m with John about having Chad in the finale – I think Erin deserves it more, but I wouldn’t be all up in arms if it ended up being Chad. For some reason, I kinda like him after last night’s show. And I doubt he could catch up to the votes and scores that Nicole & Evan would be getting in the finals, so he would likely ensure that the last two standing would be Evan & Nicole by being an iron-clad 3rd. It’s happened before – I thought Joanna was a much stronger dancer than Kelly last season, but Kelly made it to the finale over her. It will definitely be interesting to see how things shake out tonight – I’m starting to think any predictions made this week are a total crapshoot, as there’s so many variables that could come into play that could affect the outcome…Chad being in the bottom 2 last week, Derek being injured & getting sympathy votes, Evan falling into 2nd place last week, Erin & Maks’ “Why Not Us?” campaign, the running order…oy, I feel like I’m back in my multivariate calculus class with Dr. Yao. *shaking head* 🙁
th only couple i’m worried about is Nicole and Derek, so proud of them last night, DEREK did AMAAAAAAAAZING like usual with AT and the CHA CHA (there were enough chacha for me) and Nicole sold it big time!! for Evan although the foxtrot was nice and don’t think it was equally good to Nicole s(i don’t think it desrved 2 10s especially with evan having his fake idiot smile and weird legs sorry i just don’t like him, he can fake as much as he can still not believable to me) other than i thought it was a great nice night, reaalyy like Chad but i think the other three deserve more to be in the finals than him!
Here on this very blog, Cori, we were very positive about Erin/Maks – and about Maks by himself (or I was 🙂 ). I liked him mainly for what an awesome job he did on the last tour. But he’s really soured me over the last couple weeks.
That said – Dial Idol doesn’t really work for DWTS. That they picked a couple to leave (seriously? Erin and Maks?), is interesting and it means they have a good bit of faith in their numbers, but I certainly wouldn’t count on it. They only count phone voting and the serious fans work the net in a big way.
You bring up a good point with the online voting, Heidi – dialidol is quickly becoming obsolete, with the advent of text message & online voting on some shows. It already seems like a bit of a moot point for DWTS, and with all the changes being instituted on this season of SYTYCD, it would not surprise me if they changed their voting structure to allow votes cast online. And I can only imagine that the use of it on Idol has decreased dramatically, since viewership is down. Now I would be REALLY impressed if they managed to come up with a way to measure the traffic on a voting server or text message number, hehe…then we’d have a pretty damn good prediction! 😀 Dream big…
That Argentine tango is ridiculous to me, it’s so amazing! Right up there with HoughZinger’s paso doble!
evan , loved the paso (i love the song and everything about the dance), liked the foxtrot
nicole,loved the at (AMAZING), hated the cha cha (cha cha is my favoite latin dance, and i didn’t see a lot of cha cha there, hated the solo, and the rest was really boring),luck that the AT was amazing and made me forget how mucha hated the cha cha
Erin, liked the paso ( not amazing at all,good)
the rest i don’t even remenber
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