Heidi’s been doing an amazing job as usual finding all the leaks as to who will be the cast on Dancing with the Stars 2010. I find the most recent rumor of Paula Abdul on Dancing with the Stars especially interesting.

While we wait to find out the official DWTS 2010 cast, I was thinking about what could make the show REALLY exciting. Plus, I think I was influenced by the Survivor 20: Heroes vs Villains where they’re brining back a bunch of old contestants. Similar to that, what if Dancing with the Stars did a special season called Dancing with the Stars All Stars?

Of course, the hard part of doing a Dancing with the Stars All Stars would be selecting the stars to return to the show. Here’s the list of celebrities I’d be interested in seeing back on the show (in no particular order):

Donny Osmond – Better bring the ringer back so that he can compete against all the other ringers. Then, it would be really interesting.

Mya – I’d like to see her dance with someone besides Dmitry. I might change my mind about her then.

Shawn Johnson – Maybe it would be even more fun with her if we gave her 10 years to actually grow up. However, seeing her fan base against a Donny Osmond fan base would be interesting.

Ty Murray – I know I should have Gilles here, but I’m not a huge fan. I’d rather see Ty dance again. He’s just so lovable.

Brooke Burke – Let’s partner her with someone other than Derek and see how she does. She had such a natural ability to dance. I’m pretty sure she’d look great regardless of partner.

Lance Bass – I really enjoyed the effect he had on Lacey. Lacey was more exciting with Lance as a partner. I think Lance would have a similar effect on some of our other favorite female DWTS pros.

Kristi Yamaguchi – I wonder if there are more ice skating fans or gymnastic fans. This would be interesting to find out. My bets on Kristi as cute as Shawn is.

Mel B – She was great on DWTS and I’d love to see her again. Her and Maks were great, but I think Mel B would be entertaining with almost any partner. Well, except maybe the stone faced Dmitry or Alec.

Sabrina Bryan – I’d like to see her get another shot. I bet her fans would go crazy voting for her if they had another chance.

Apolo Anton Ohno – It would be odd to see him dancing with anyone, but Julianne. In fact, a whole group of fans would likely revolt. However, Apolo would be fun to watch again on DWTS.

Emmitt Smith – Emmitt was just downright smooth. I’m not sure about how he did technically, but he definitely had a gift for making his movement look silky and smooth. It was amazing to watch.

Mario Lopez – Him and Karina were great together and it would be weird to see him with another pro. However, imagine Mario dancing with Ashly DelGrosso (who they’d have to bring back as well). That would be nice to watch.

Joey Lawrence – I loved all of the top 3 from this season. Edyta definitely made Joey look good. I think a part of me sees Joey as a skinny nerdy kid dancing with someone as beautiful as Edyta and that makes me happy.

Drew Lachey – I don’t remember many standouts from season 3, but I did see Drew on tour and he was a good dancer.

Kelly Monaco – The first season barely even counts, but Kelly was the first to win and deserves to be on a DWTS with some actual competition.

Can you imagine a season of Dancing with the Stars with even half of these dancers? You’d barely have any idea each week who was going home. Plus, the dancing would be to such an amazing level. Every dance would be a pleasure to watch. I’m sure the judges would get a little crabby and anal about little things, but we could deal with that for the chance to see these people again.

Ok, so it probably won’t happen, but it’s fun to think about a Dancing with the Stars All Stars, no? Who would you include in your All Star cast and why?

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!

John says…
Let me introduce my comments about Mya with the fact that I knew nothing about Mya before they announced she’d be in the show and I think I’ve been spending too much time at home on paternity leave since whenever I see or hear the name Mya I start singing the song from the PBS kids show “Mya y Miguel.” Yes, I need help.

Those feelings aside, it just doesn’t feel right that Mya’s even in this competition. I know this may sound a bit hypocritical, but hear me out. Sure, I didn’t hold Melissa Rycroft accountable for her ballet experience, but that was forever ago (granted many others weren’t as generous). I’m also fine with entertainers like Donny Osmond who have kind of danced on stage a few times. Even gymnasts like Shawn Johnson are fine with me since gymnastics is far different than ballroom. Honestly, I didn’t held it against Mya in the beginning either. However, that changed in one of the early dances where they showed Mya helping Dmitry with the choreography. I think that says something about Dmitry also, but it just felt wrong for the star being the one helping with the choreography. I want my star to be at the mercy of their professional partner because this is foreign to them.

Next thing you know, they’re going to bring Julianne Hough on the show as a “star” singer and partner her with Derek Hough. Would that seem to fair to anyone? While Mya’s not in Julianne’s category, there are similarities to how I feel about Mya.

Heidi says…
Well, I can’t find anything to argue about. You pretty much sum it up. The girl was in Chicago, fer cryin’ out loud. I will add that Mya and Dmitry, up until last week, really had no personality plus all this talk about sleeping in the studio and having food brought in – well, it just strikes me as much too much.

I will say that both Shawn and Kristi kind of annoyed me – not them personally, but their presence in the ballroom – simply from the stand point that they aren’t your typical “olympians” from where I sit. I’m the typical Olympics viewer – rather casual. I had heard of Apollo, but not of any of the other Olympians on the show. But Shawn and Kristi are/were extremely popular young women in extremely popular sports followed by lots of young women. HUGE advantage going in – and I really don’t like to know who’s going to win on the front end. Now, Mya doesn’t fit this category – I think she was predicted to be good, but then as soon as you started looking at her bio…well, it just rubs me the wrong way.

And please, Mya fans, save the whole “but Joanna was a ballerina” crap for people who don’t know better. If you can’t distinguish between someone who took ballet as a *pre-teen* and someone who has been dancing her whole life, there’s no help for ya.

John says…
I actually like Dmitry and have liked him since SYTYCD. However, he really hasn’t shown to be as good of a choreographer on DWTS as even when he would choreograph for SYTYCD. It doesn’t seem he knows how to bring the best out of his partner. I still like him, but he should bring much more than he’s doing with someone as talented as Mya. I also can’t not mention something about Mya. Is it just me or does her head look like a Rat? Sure, that’s not a reason she shouldn’t win, but I just can’t get over it when I see her dancing.

At the end of the day, Mya has been smooth and consistent. However, have any of her performances been absolutely memorable? I can’t think of any. To me that means she’s not worthy of a mirror ball trophy.

Heidi says…
The answer is no – none of her performance are going to be remembered down the line. That honor goes to the futuristic paso doble – and no, I don’t think that’s my bias showing. Love it or hate it – you won’t *forget* it.

Dmitry is too quiet for me, and he clearly never watched DWTS before. Dude, everyone in the world knows that Len doesn’t like gimicks! Everyone on the message boards – even huge Dmitry fans – said they started screaming at the TV when Mya started dusting. If he had only done it once, it would be one thing – but to do it a few times and then claim you don’t know what Len’s problem is? Really? I think he has figured it out, now, but geez. It’s not just the SYTYCD thing – I don’t think Chelsie had this problem last season, although I clearly remember that Lacey got the Len treatment when she was with Lance Bass. I also seem to recall that was another instance where the celeb had too much input – that is the issue with Dmitry as well.

That’s a horrible thing to say about Mya’s head, John. Shame on you.

John says…
Glad we agree.

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.