John: The “Winner Take All” Cha-Cha was messed up. Even I can see that and Chelsea was my favorite. Even if the producers of DWTS had it planned well before the season started, it was just really poor planning on their part. I hope we never see it again, but knowing them watch for some variation in a future season.

Heidi: Yeah, John, it was definitely messed up. Never before have they so blatantly changed the outcome of the show – in a way the viewers had NO CHANCE of over ruling or even competing with them. Stupid. But it is heartening to me that people other than myself were outraged at how they spoke to Ralph as well. That was uncalled for. However, while I think Mark was an ass much of the season, I don’t know if I would call it controversial as much as disappointing. He used to be such a sweet boy.

Some of write in comments on this one are interesting. A number of them mention Bruno and his inappropriate comments and/or behavior. Bruno’s definitely taken it too far. Everyone can tell he’s acting because he’s trying to be so over the top. Plus, the real horny sex addict Bruno is coming through and it’s not pretty. If you’ve ever seen the show live, watch Bruno. You can see how much of an act his judging really is. He goes from this hyper, over the top judge when the cameras are rolling and the crowd is cheering, but behind the scenes he’s quite the opposite. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind a replacement judge for Bruno and even Carrie Ann.

Courtney: Yeah, the “winner take all” cha-cha was definitely this season’s Bristol controversy…hell, I would even go so far as to say it was an even bigger deal that Bristol, because rather than it being Bristol fans vs. Non-Bristol fans, it was pretty much all fans vs. the powers that be.  I saw fans of ALL the remaining couples at the time outraged at how badly it manipulated the outcome of the show.  And I firmly believe that Ralph could have made it to the finale (and maybe even won) had that dance not occured.  But yeah, could it have been any more obvious from the judges’ comments that they reeeeeally didn’t want Ralph in the finale? Jeez-ass…at least try to cover your disdain with a thin veil of feigned sympathy.  Mark gets the dunce cap this season – the same won that Maks wore last season, and look at him now! Sweet as pie There’s hope for Mark yet! Kendra was starting to look like she could be this season’s Bristol, the way she was sticking around…then she actually got kinda good, and it was hard to hate her.  Chris Brown managed to avoid assaulting anyone (or any furniture) and his performance was actually quite good, despite all the hullaballoo leading up to it; Wendy’s in love with Wendy…’nuff said.  And the mysterious “other” category – yep, I agree with many of you that Bruno is out of control and should probably be registered as a sex offender; Donnie (Burns, not Wahlberg or Osmond) made a boo-boo when he gave Romeo the wrong score, but to me it was more of an isolated blunder than a controversy; I think Maks’ “sex on a stick” monologue was less of a controversy and more of a hilarious outtake ; and yeah, Brooke pretty much sucks at her job, but that ain’t really a controversy either…it’s just an unfortunate consequence we deal with Interesting…looks like a few of you think ABC was “pimping” Kirstie…fair enough.  I guess I could see how someone could question her dance ability, but the great thing about DWTS is that it’s a popularity contest – you don’t have to be the best dancer in order to win.  Long story short: Bruno needs a constant cold shower, and the “winner take all” dance sucks.

Vogue: You guys said it. The “winner takes all Cha Cha” was the worst thing they’ve ever done. Do whatever you like, but, please don’t mess with the demographics of the show and take away our vote. Hey, our votes play a role in this show as much as the pros, celebrities, judges, hosts, make up team, etc….atelast I always thought so? Bruno took the cake this year too. I still like him and appreciate his presence. But, he needs disciplined. They should make it a rule to never go overboard demeaning a contestant. I’ll never forget that “diaper” comment and being outraged on it. Please producers if you read this, please don’t let either of these two incidents happen again. Find other ways to be controversial. I’ll take another Bristol Palin versus taking our votes away or Bruno overly demeaning contestants especially someone with a big of heart as Ralph Maccio.

Marianya: Am I part of the minority in that I actually can kind of understand why they had the “winner-take-all” ChaCha? I mean, Chelsea was a strong dancer, as was Sabrina Bryan and others, but let’s face it, without the ChaCha Chelsea would have been gone. Granted, the show could have done a better job in figuring out a way balance popular celebs with those that dance well, but there was a reason for it. However, Dancing with the Stars’ purpose is for the audience to choose which dancer they liked best… and one thing I noticed is that it ends up being the one that entertains as well as dances well, and that’s a balance. In having this “winner-take-all” dance TPTB are manipulating what should have been a fun show that the audience could invest themselves in rather than trying to alienate their audience.

As for most of the behavior from either the judges, or the celebs or the pro dances is more or less for the cameras, it just seems to be so over the top that it got tacky, campy or just outright annoying, it’s just becoming the norm… As for the verbal punching bag of Ralph, (almost) every season the judges have one verbal punching bag or another, and I guess Ralph just got the short end of the stick this time around. I don’t agree with it, I would much rather dip the judges in hot oil in an effort to cool their anger, but I’m too lazy to come up with that much oil.

Through all of that… as much as I deplore everything… get rid of the “Winner-take-all” dance of any kind, it shouldn’t exist. If they want to do something to keep better dancers in, then do something where the last four couples are on the floor and they have to dance through a handful of dances picked out of a hat, thirty seconds to a minute each, just like how dancers do in ballroom competitions. This way the celebs could actually prove that they’ve learned the basics and could dance through them AND we could compare the celebs side by side.