And so begins another season 🙂 Admittedly, I found it hard to psych myself up for this season – I wasn’t really looking forward to it, after the 3-ring manipulation circus of last season, and didn’t really feel super-invested in any of the couples until last night. While the talent this season seems almost unfairly stacked in favor of the female celebs, unfortunately for them, I think the guys may have actually ended up more enjoyable and memorable – perhaps the female pros see the writing on the wall, and know they’ve gotta compensate for a lack of experience by having their partners be really, really entertaining?
Generally, aside from maybe 3-4 dances last night, this felt like a pretty tame premiere – the first hour was kind of a bear to get through, as the energy really slipped before picking up around the 9 PM hour. Other observations? The opening number was cool and not something we had really seen yet, but the preponderance of Maks & Val was eyeroll-inducing – they’re really trying to drive the point home that these two are the “stars” this season, huh? I feel like we only saw quick snippets of the female pros, with those two idiots mugging shamelessly in between. The sexism of this show is blood-boiling, at times. Glad to see that the judges were kinda stingy with the scores for the first night, as this tends to stem a lot of potential b*tching from couples down the line who are given cushy scores for weeks before the judges get real and drop the hammer. Getting really tired of them reminding us in one breath that Heather danced backup for Beyonce, while in another launching into this big apology tour about how “different” ballroom is from what Heather does. The cognitive dissonance…it hurts.
Just as a refresher for the regulars and a quick explanation for the newbs, the power rankings are a ranking of who I think is the least likely to get eliminated next week (#1) to who is the most likely (#12). It takes into account how well they danced, how memorable they were, how big I think their voting fanbase is going to be, how big their pro’s fanbase is, how likeable they are, etc. Is it NOT a ranking of how well they danced or how high they scored, so if you’re here to piously tell me that “so-and-so should be higher than so-and-so because they got a better score”, prepare to be called out. Shall we begin? 🙂 Read more..