Where were we?  Oh yeah – what would happen to DWTS if we made it more like SCD?  Well, I think a lot. Kind of.  :-)

Of the differences I outlined in my previous post on the subject, there were a few BIG ones:

• The scoring difference;
• The voting duration difference;
• The voting style difference;
• The number of judges.

The number of judges on the two shows isn’t as huge, IMO, as the other three.  By having four judges (or five) instead of three, the only effect is the slight watering down of the impact of a rogue judge.  Similar to how having two or three dances in a week softens the result of one bad dance, for example.  You have one bad dance, followed by one great dance, and you can still end up in second or third place – like Derek and Joanna in Week 9.  The same thing happens with four or five judges – you have one mean judge that scores you badly but the other three score you high, that one judge’s score isn’t a huge of an impact on your total.

The scoring difference is a different story.  Remember my “Shocking Elimination” post and the explanation of the scoring and the math?  Remember in Week 9, when the Judges scores were worked out we had the following:

Judges Scores:
Mya = 87
Joanna = 81
Kelly = 78
Donny = 72

Add up the total points given = 318
Now figure the percentage of total points each celeb got:
Mya = 27.36
Joanna = 25.47
Kelly = 24.53
Donny = 22.64

If they were on SCD, they would be ranked as follows:

Mya = 4
Joanna = 3
Kelly = 2
Donny = 1

So instead of a 4.72 point difference between Donny and Mya, it shrinks to 3 points. It may not seem like a lot, but it could be.  Not only that, but Mya’s lead over both Joanna and Kelly shrinks as well.  Mya had a nearly two point lead over Joanna – it shrinks to 1.

What happens when you add in viewer votes?  What if Kelly, for example, actually had just a bit more viewer votes that Mya, putting her second behind Donny.  Quite conceivable, really. On DWTS it might not be big enough to beat Mya’s judges scores, but on SCD? That makes the viewer ranking the following:

Donny = 4
Kelly = 3
Mya = 2
Joanna = 1

When you add them together, you have:

Donny = 5
Mya = 6
Kelly = 5
Joanna = 4

Which is presumably how it turned out. But what if Joanna had more votes than Mya? What if, using the DWTS system it wasn’t enough to beat the difference in the judges scores, but it was still more actual votes?  That would give you SCD viewer ranks of:

Donny = 4
Mya = 1
Kelly = 3
Joanna = 2

When you add the judges rank and the viewer rank together:

Donny = 1 + 4 = 5
Mya 4 + 1 = 5
Kelly 2 + 3 = 5
Joanna 3 + 2 = 5

What happens in a four way tie? Viewer votes win, Mya goes home over Joanna.  Of course, we didn’t have the dance off in the final four, did SCD? I don’t think they did, but that *might* have saved Mya – but no guarantee.  And this doesn’t hold true in the Final because the judges scores don’t actually count – it’s all viewers votes. Mya still loses.  But think about the lack of Judges scores in the final tally!! There is no storyboarding – no judges manipulation in favor of who they consider the best dancer! That’s pretty significant too, although I wager some voters listen to the judges.

At the end of the day, if Joanna had gone to the final instead of Mya – Donny still wins. But I would have had Derek for one more week. And it’s all about me. I think this difference in scoring has the potential to be huge – think about early on when Donny was way down in the ranks but way up in viewer votes? Would his chances of going home have been higher? I think so. But how do the other differences work in concert with this one? Do they even the playing field once again?

I’ll attempt to discuss the rest of it in Part III.

Huge thanks to Codebear on Youtube – he/she got a ton of media with just makes my job easier.

Good Morning America!

Mya and Dmitry on Entertainment Tonight

Donny and Kym on Entertainment Tonight

Kelly and Louis on Entertainment Tonight

Kelly and Louis on TV Guide Network

Final three on The View

The View exit interview

…Donny Osmond and Kym Johnson.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the best person won out of that final three. I never thought, at the beginning of this season, that I would be so ecstatic that an Osmond won the competition. But, while not the best dancer, Donny had heart, humility and passion for this show that was required to win. Sans the massive fanbase and ringer status, he still deserved to win over Mya and Kelly. The man got it done.

Why? Well, for me, it boiled down to Donny and Kelly. The two of them made me FEEL their dances – I cried when Kelly and Louis cried. Donny just plain entertained during his freestyle which Mya, with all her technical perfection, just couldn’t do. And, tonight, Donny made me feel all mushy and happy – yeah, he’s got too much of a mouth at times, but tonight when he was genuinely shocked that Kelly took third, and then he was over joyed when he won….well, he showed more excitement and heart than Mya showed all season. And that, my friends, is the key to winning Dancing with the Stars.

Congratulations again, to Donny and Kym.

We did 2 polls after last week’s show to predict the winner of Dancing with the Stars Season 9. Here’s a link to see the results of those polls and their prediction of Mya as winner of Dancing with Stars season 9. Of course, that voting was done without knowing the scores from tonight’s show. So, let’s vote for the winner of Dancing with the Stars Season 9 now that we know the following scores:
Mya and Dmitry – 87
Donny and Kym – 85
Kelly and Louis – 76

Tomorrow, we’ll know the official winner of Dancing with the Stars season 9. The wait is over.

Okay, I got a pretty good response from my math lesson post from earlier this week, so I’ll break it down again.

Unfortunately, as with the last several finales, there is a dance on Tuesday that only the judges score – which has the potential to decide the winner if the votes are close. Which annoys me tremendously. But you all knew that. Anyway, the judges sort of broke with tradition tonight and did not leave an even playing field. I am of two minds about this. Part of me agrees with Maks – let the VOTERS decide at this point in the season. But the other part of me realizes that Kelly had a couple mistakes that the judges couldn’t overlook (then again, she’s the only non-pro in the group). The judges started off badly by underscoring her Argentine Tango, so when her dances didn’t do better relative to the other two as she went along, she went into a hole. Mathematically, this makes it very hard for her.

The total points out of a possible 90 for the night:
Kelly = 76
Mya = 87
Donny = 85

The total of those three scores is 285. Based on those total points awarded, the following is each celebs share of the judges scores:
Kelly = 30.65
Mya = 35.08
Donny = 34.27

As you can see, there is almost no space between Donny and Mya; less than a point. Kelly is farther out with well more than four points between her and Mya and almost four between her and Donny. Now, that might not seem like much, but at the end of the day I don’t see her beating BOTH Donny and Mya. She was certainly charming enough, IMO, to get LOTS of votes, but I don’t see her getting higher than 3rd place. There are too many people who don’t vote until the last night of the season and odds are those votes will go to Mya and Donny.

Now, based on the Freestyle – well, this show is much poorer without a Hough or Ballas in the finale. Absent the sibs, Kym did an amazing job and they won the night, and possibly the show, with that Freestyle. Kym is only hampered by the fact of Donny’s age and his extreme schedule – no disrespect to Donny intended. He is doing an amazing job for being quite a bit older than Mya and Kelly both – and sorry, but Kym and Donny kicked Mya and Dmitry’s ass in the freestyle round. And, because he kicked their butts despite his age – well, he should take the trophy. And this is coming from a woman who despised the thought of another Osmond on the show – so it’s high praise indeed. I will add, that if not for her fall, Kelly would have easily taken second place – Mya and Dmitry simply did not do the work to win that round. Kelly had more risks and more excitement than Mya did. Yeah she fell – but she did a move that you could fall out of. Mya played it safe. And that pisses me off – what, you expect them to hand it to you?

Okay, enough with the editorializing. Donny, Mya and Kelly fans see what they have to do. It appears to be a shoot out between Mya and Donny. Now, lets speculate. Let’s say that the judges revert to type for the final dances tomorrow. Which I guess means:
Kelly = 27
Mya = 30
Donny = 28

Or something like that. I THINK that means the judges score gets added to the previous judges scores which then counts for 50% of the vote, which means:
Kelly = 103
Mya = 117
Donny = 114

For a total points awarded count of 333. Divide the individual score by the total points awarded to get the percentage for each celebrity:
Kelly = 30.93
Mya = 35.14
Donny = 33.93

As you see, that widens the gap between all the celebrities by a good bit. I suggest that Donny and Kelly fans seriously vote like crazy. Donny has the best shot of beating Mya. With Mya’s as the score to beat, Donny and Kelly need 1.21 and 4.21 percent MORE votes than Mya to beat her. As I said before, it’s anybody’s game. So – what will happen? I’ll go out on a limb and give it to Donny Osmond. But – don’t count Mya out. Fans who assume that one or the other wins could end up losing.

Oh my wow! Where has this season gone??? I feel like it was just last week that I was trying to rank all 16 couples and it took me bloody forever – and then there were 3.  Gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised by both Donny & Kelly tonight, and felt a little let down by Mya (or rather, Dmitry’s choreography).  However, the tentative rankings I had in my head after last week have remained intact, and now, without further ado, I give you – the FINAL RANKING!!!

Finishing in 3rd place: Kelly & Louis – I will finally come clean: Kelly & Louis were my favorite couple this season (and pretty much the only one I wasn’t accused of either hating on or favoring unfairly), and what a joy it has been to see Kelly blossom from the nervous & unsure girl in week 1 to the fun-loving & confident gal that danced tonight! Kelly was pure joy to watch in her freestyle – who cares if she fouled up more than once? I couldn’t help but smile watching she & Louis groove – those two are just perfect together. And boy did it show in their tango! I honestly felt more chemistry between Kelly & Louis during their tango than I did all season from Mya & Dmitry…and let’s just say Louis isn’t really into chicks (trying to keep it PG here, folks ).  Kelly’s footwork was crisp & sexy, and there was nary a misstep in sight.  The megamix: oy.  I’m sorry, I absolutely hated the idea…much preferred the mambo marathon & the relay to this.  Honestly, pretty much everyone looked chaotic & out of sync to me, and unfortunately Kelly & Louis stuck out the most.  While the fact that Kelly made it to the finals speaks volumes about her fanbase, she has been in the bottom 2 more than once, and she just doesn’t have the judges scores to boost her potential to win.  But at the risk of sounding totally cheesy – I feel like Kelly is already a winner for all the progress she has made this season.  Best of luck to her after the show ends…I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more of her

Runner-up: Mya & Dmitry – I’ve said it ad infinitum, but I’ll say it once more for good measure: the best dancer doesn’t always win.  And in this case of Mya & Dmitry, I would be prepared for Gilles Marini redux – I just don’t see them pulling out a win over Donny & Kym.  Her dances tonight only solidified for me that she & Dmitry have about as much chemistry as peanut butter & pickles – they just don’t go together well at all.  Paso – can we say “overscored”? They definitely got off-time, and I feel like Dmitry was powering her through every move.  Mya’s face looked absolutely blank to me – she does great with sexy dances, but with aggressive ones like the paso, I think she’s a bit of a fish out of water & doesn’t quite know what to do with her face.  It also felt a bit repetitive, which seems to be a trend in Dmitry’s choreography – and now we move onto the freestyle.  I hated it.  I felt like it did nothing to showcase Mya’s talents, was low energy, too simple (C’mon, Dmitry…Kelly’s choreography was harder than that!), and cliched – I feel like the ’50s/’60s themed dances on the show have really been overdone.  I have to wonder if their freestyle would have been more exciting had they gone with Mya’s idea instead – after all, when she helped Dmitry with their ’70s samba, it was actually fun to watch, and they got their first perfect 30.  Now here’s the conspiracy: I feel like the judges are gunning hard for Mya to win…to the point that they’re deliberately overscoring her.  To what end? I’m not sure – maybe trying to shift the focus of the show back to good dancing rather than popularity.  So Mya may have the highest point total after tonight, but it’s only 2 points more than Donny…and in the battle of the fanbases (though it will probably be a close call, just like last season!), I think Donny will edge Mya out.  Mya really needed to make an impression tonight to really contend for the trophy, and I feel like she fell short (due mostly to ho-hum choreography). I just don’t see her really sticking out in voters’ minds as much as Donny & Kelly do.  But what a great run! Seriously, Mya could be the best technician I’ve seen on the show – EVER.  It’s a shame she just couldn’t seem to hone her showmanship skills to really knock it out of the park. 

The Winner: Donny & Kym – Donny has actually been a pleasant surprise for me this season, overall – I guess I was bracing for another Marie (ai ai ai).  But when he wasn’t talking out of turn while getting his scores or perpetuating his fauxmance with Bruno, he was actually very fun to watch.  I will give it to him – none of the other competitors this season could measure up to Donny in terms of showmanship.  Almost every week (with the exception of maybe the quickstep & last week’s tango) he brought his energy full-tilt, and never stopped playing to the crowd. He really impressed me in his cha-cha – his foot & hip action were better than any of the other guys I’ve seen this season. Plus it was just a fun, fluffy, energetic routine (even if it was less cha-cha and more open work).  And he had by far the best freestyle – Kym made a smart choice in chosing a Broadway theme again, as that is really Donny’s venue – it was high-energy, explosive, and engaging.  I wish I had more to say about Donny tonight, but he was overall quite good – not much to critique.  He has definitely secured the win in my mind, due not only to his large fanbase, but also his good scores and his peerless performance quality – I may have ragged on Donny in earlier rankings, but his routines were always ones I remembered, for better or worse.  And I will be thrilled if Kym finally gets the trophy after two seasons of being the “almost” girl! Kudos to both of them…

…and with that, I close my final power ranking for this season.  It’s been fun hearing what you guys think week after week, and bouncing thoughts off one another.  Hope you guys will stick with us in the off-season – rest assured this will not be my last post until next March! I still have plenty to chat about and hope you have thoughts and opinions about it   Now speaking of opinions…let’s hear yours! Will Mya manage to pull out the win over Donny? Will Kelly surprise us all and take the trophy home herself??? Will Cloris get naked tomorrow night (oh dear!)? TALK TO ME!

Heidi says…
I just love Kelly Osbourne, and that shocks the hell out of me. She’s what the show is all about; a B or C-list celebrity comes in and is paired with a professional partner and she LEARNS how to dance. And dance pretty well. No, she’s not perfect – that’s not the point of the show. She learned how to dance and she is charming as all get out. What’s interesting to me is that once she decided to do this show, she threw herself into it and worked for it. She even went so far as to go to the producers before rehearsals started and told them they better give her a pro she couldn’t push around; she was originally supposed to get Mark Ballas and they switched it up and put her with Louis (yes, this says something about Mark and Louis, but that’s another post ) – that speaks to Kelly’s desire to do well. And she has. I think she stands a good chance to win this thing because she is seen as the non-dancer and people love her – it often doesn’t take more than that. Just listen to Rosanna Tvarez of Reality Chat – I bet there are a whole bunch of people like Rosanna out there.

John says…
What scares me is that I think you’re right. There are a lot of people that like Kelly on DWTS and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. Sure, there have been people on Dancing with the Stars that I can’t believe I ended up liking (Joey Lawrence did that for me), but Kelly just annoys the heck out of me. The crazy part is that much like you can’t explain why you like her I have a hard time explaining why I don’t like her. Let me give it a try.

She’s just absolutely awkward on the floor. Her lines are the worst to watch. When I watch her dance, I feel like she’s only going half way. Yes, I’ve seen her talk about how hard she’s trying, but on the dance floor she just feels like she’s only going half way in all her movements. It’s like she’s afraid to go all the way and finish the move. However, the thing that bothers me most is her face. I’m not even sure why, but it’s just so unattractive for me to watch and makes me cringe every time she gets up to dance.

Yes, I know how un-American it is for me to not like the underdog, but this will be the first time I’m not with the underdog. She seems like a sweet girl, but if she hoists the mirror ball I’ll be really disappointed with this season.

Heidi says…
Don’t worry, John, she’s still the long shot, even though she has a shot. I would agree with you in terms of awkward and her face up until the last two weeks or so – I think the fact that she visibly over came those problems is one of the reasons that Joanna went home instead of her. If she’d had another night where she danced like you describe, I think she would have gone home.  But, she’s getting stronger. She seems like she had something of a breakthrough. Be afraid of America’s Sweetheart – not to mention we are total suckers for a British accent.

John says…
That’s what’s so crazy. I usually LOVE to see people who overcame bad dancing (see Ty from last season) and I’m also a huge sucker for girls with accents (see Cat Deeley…Yummy!). Not to mention my love of blondes. You’d think that Kelly would be my absolute favorite. That’s why it’s so amazing that she couldn’t find a way into my heart. I hope you’re right and that she does get sent home. I predict the judges will give her higher scores than she deserves and possibly lower scores for the other 2 just to keep things interesting.

Heidi says…
Nah, if the judges stick to their usual finale script, you won’t see a huge difference in the scoring unless someone falls down and breaks something. Unless of course, Len is so pissed about Gilles losing last season he gives all 8’s to Kelly and Donny and all 10’s to Mya. Could happen. But as I showed in a previous post – that might not be enough to give her the win.

After the final 3 were announced last week, we posted two polls for readers of this site to vote for the winner of Dancing with the Stars season 9. It’s time to check out the results and see who we predict as the winner of Dancing with the Stars season 9.

The first poll asked “Who do you want to be the winner of Dancing with the Stars season 9?”

The second poll asked “Who do you think will be the winner of Dancing with the Stars season 9?”

From the looks of the polls, both of them are predicting Mya to be the winner of Dancing with the Stars. I find it interesting that it’s MUCH closer when you talk about who people WANT to be the winner. Basically, shows a nice split in the fan bases, but even fans of other people think that Mya has this one in the bag.

One likely bias in the polls is that I’m pretty sure that many of Donny’s fans aren’t online and visiting websites like this one. We’ll see how the scores go tonight, but if you read Heidi’s post on Dancing with the Stars scoring, then you’ll realize that it’s the voting that will matter most and not the judges scores.

I hope.

First, on E! from Tuesday, Julianne outs herself as a Twilight fanatic who belongs to Team Edward – for further outage, check her twitter when she tells everyone she and her sisters went to the midnight showing on thurday night/friday morning here in Nashville. Julianne also talks about Chuck. Also Cheryl interviews Mya and calls Len “a pervert”.

The Insider makes use of Pap Henry’s off hand question to Derek about Playgirl – this is how rumors get started, ya’ll.

E! News from Wednesday – The elimination results in (very) brief.

Holy cow! Entertainment Tonight covers someone other than Donny – or should I say, in *addition* to Donny!! Maybe it’s bad luck for the couple, since Derek and Joanna get eliminated the next night.

Entertainment Tonight from Wednesday Night – Marie and Mary Hart

Reality Chat from Tuesday – and this is what I was talking about in my “Shocking” Elimination post. Votes are *everything* – listen to Rosanna Tvarez talk about Kelly Osbourne. She clearly says that she WANTS Kelly to win – that might not be who should or who will win. They both admit that Mya is the better dancer, and maybe Joanna – but Rosanna is emotionally invested in Kelly. I’m seeing a lot of that across the net too – I think that this season is anybody’s to win. So, which fanbase will muster the votes. And all three couples better have KILLER freestyles – and not just technically good, but one that packs an emotional punch.