DWTS19 Carrie Ann Inaba Sizes Up The Competition Going Into The Finale

Well, it’s finally the day we’ve all been waiting for!! Who’s ready for a little dancing? For starters, head to TV Guide as Dancing With The Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba sizes up all of the finalists and describes what it will take to win. It’s very much like her Parade blog last week, but, with more detail.

“This to me is by far the closest competition we have had in a long time,” veteran judge Carrie Ann Inaba tells TVGuide.com. “I’m really interested to see how it’s all going to play out. … At this stage, it could be any of them. It’s going to be great.”

The unpredictability of this season’s finale may be due in part to the show’s polarizing new casting philosophy — tapping contestants like Bethany Mota and Sadie Robertson, who are popular with the younger set, have a huge social media presence, and are influential enough to get fans to watch the show.

“At first on paper, I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t too thrilled [with the cast] because I didn’t know a lot of the names,” Inaba admits, echoing the sentiments of the show’s primary fan base. “Obviously we all know Tommy Chong, we all know Alfonso [Ribeiro]. But other than that, there weren’t that many names that I actually knew. So I was curious. But I was happily surprised. … We’ve brought in a younger demo and I think it has changed up the voting a little. In the past, we had Sabrina Bryan and we had Cody Linley, and they had huge social media followers too, but [the fans] weren’t watching the show. They didn’t vote. This year, these kids have followings that are voting.”

Lots more at TV Guide.