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PureDWTS Season 29, Week 9 – Power Rankings

Soooo…I can’t be the only one who went “Whoomp…there it is!” when they heard about Gleb’s divorce over the weekend 😛 It would not shock me to see Chrishell & Gleb getting papped together at some point in the near future, and I’m wondering if that’s part of the reason the show kept them around so long this season – perhaps the fleeting hope that they might get the chance to go public with a showmance? Who knows. Gleb’s divorce clearly wasn’t the biggest news this weekend, but I got a chuckle nonetheless 😉

So the face-offs went about like they have every other season: each face-off seemed to have one couple that went for technique while the other went for performance. And like most other seasons, the judges seemed to reward their points to the couple that needed them more (with the exception of whichever couple they were trying to oust – in this case, Nelly & Daniella). Also found it interesting that they seemed to make the celeb’s face-off costumes to match their first dances – not sure if this was done as a cost-saving measure or a time-saving one (or both), but I don’t know that we’ve seen anything like that before. Just curious.

In a move I don’t think most of us saw coming quite this soon, we lost AJ and Cheryl – a couple that many of us had predicted would win this season in our preseason poll. I think they were unfortunately just a sacrificial lamb – Nelly seemed to be the intended target for elimination this week, but when it became clear that he wasn’t going anywhere (and dancers that belong in the finale were falling into the bottom 2), the judges had to pivot; AJ just happened to have a bad day at the office when his Viennese waltz went off the rails, so I think he was the only logical choice. I’ll admit that I found myself a skosh disappointed with AJ this season – maybe my expectations were too high, maybe he just didn’t get the right choreo, maybe he got screwed with song and dance assignments, who knows. But I guess I just thought he would be someone who easily bested Nick Carter’s often-erratic performances, and instead I think he ended up only slightly better than Nick when you netted out all of his dances. Read more..

November 11, 2020 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 29, Week 8 – Power Rankings

Generally, it was a pretty “meh” week. I don’t feel like anyone had any huge breakthroughs or astounding performances, and everyone was more or less in a holding pattern from the previous week. Or all the days are running together due to the pandemic, and the sense of impending doom I’m getting from the election is just dulling my senses. Both are equally plausible at this point.

As it usually happens at least once per season, Carrie Ann appointed herself the “critical” judge this week, and seemed to nitpick just about everyone, and Kaitlyn doubly. I feel like she pulls this shit right after she gets called out for giving generally dumb or just unhelpful feedback – in this case, it was her “I wasn’t feeling it” comment in response to Kaitlyn’s paso doble last week, which prompted both Artem and Val to speak up in the media about her lack of helpful feedback. It’s like she gets defensive to the point of having to prove that she’s a serious, tough dance judge with credentials, and ends up just looking petty because of the way she just reeeeeaches for stuff to pick at. It’s a not a good look, but it’s not like we haven’t know for YEARS that Carrie Ann was the least legitimate of the judges. And it did seem like Derek was trying to soften the blow after Carrie Ann went on her rampages – more often than not, he gave reassuring compliments, and was scoring a point or two higher than both Bruno & Carrie Ann. Caught a weird moment immediately after the bottom 2 were called – Derek and Bruno seemed to be gesturing towards one another as if to say “Well what do you think?” before glancing over at Carrie Ann, who seemed engrossed in a bunch of papers she was writing on and ignored them completely. WTF was she doing, filing a tax return??? The scores had long since been logged, not sure what was so important that she felt she needed to write it down before the elim…

Now with Chrishell gone, I don’t think there’s any truly crummy dancers left – which leaves us in an interesting position. One could probably argue that Nelly’s the weakest, but he’s still improving and he also appears to be quite popular, as he has yet to fall into the bottom two despite some harsh scores. On the flip side, both Johnny and Skai have been trending upward with scores in recent weeks, but both have been in the bottom 2 at least once. Then you’ve got Kaitlyn and AJ, who are good but seem to vacillate in a bit in terms of quality; and there’s Justina & Nev, who are consistent but not always super memorable to watch. Add to the mix the fact that we still don’t know how many couples are headed to the finale (I think five is a good number, as it’s the top 1/3 of contestants this season, but who knows), and I can’t really state with confidence who will be there and who won’t. I’d say this made me excited, but anymore, I’m struggling to feel passionate about this show – I’m afraid a lot of the magic died for me with Tom’s departure. Add Tyrant trying to fake cry about Jeannie for attention and I’m damn near changing the channel…ugh.

So we obviously bid farewell to Jeannie – which sucks, because she really was one of the most fun contestants to watch this season, and I loved how she vibed with Brandon.  But I’ve come to learn that one’s health is nothing to trifle with, so I’m glad she caught her ailment at such a crucial point and will likely make a full recovery. If I’m being honest, I had already predicted her as one half of the double elim in last week’s rankings, so I can’t say I’m terribly surprised…although the cause of her elimination is something I definitely wouldn’t have predicted. At the very least, Brandon made it further this season than he ever has before. Then we (finally) shook the dead weight of Chrishell & Gleb loose, which I felt was long overdue. The fact that Gleb had the audacity to pull out the damn bed as a prop FOR A VIENNESE WALTZ had my blood boiling, as did the fact that he once again managed to include the minimum possible number of steps needed to be considered a Viennese waltz and somehow got he and his partner another tongue bath for it. Then there was the suspicious convenience of Carrie Ann NOT calling them out for a lift (after specifically nitpicking Kaitlyn for something similar earlier in the night), and I was downright incredulous by the end of their critique and scoring. Seriously, I wanted to smack all three judges (Derek included) for their gushing.  Why did Chrishell get diplomatic immunity for most of the season??? That’s the real question.  And I think I finally figured out what it was about Chrishell that grated on my nerves: she’s a perpetual victim. I think the only week she didn’t play that card was 80s week, when her package dealt with her being an NKOTB fan. The rest of the time it was “I grew up poor!”, “I got divorced!”, “I had to freeze my eggs!”, “I’m sooooo busy as a real estate agent!” I think of all the other contestants this season, and while everyone had a week or two that was sad, for the most part, their packages all netted out to be generally pretty upbeat and positive. Chrishell’s seemed to be a laundry list of trauma and ways in which her life is hard. I don’t claim to know exactly how her divorce went down, or whose fault it was (as a kid of divorce, I’ve found its usually both spouses’ fault, to some degree), but after seeing her on this season of DWTS, I do think she’s a bit of a bullshit artist and is likely fibbing a bit when she gives the “I was completely blindsided!” line with regards to her divorce. And Gleb…well, y’all know how I feel about him. Let’s just say I wasn’t exactly broken up about it when the judges opted to save Skai & Alan over Chrishell & Gleb 😉 Read more..

November 4, 2020 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 29, Week 6 – Power Rankings

Just for the record – I really have no idea what I’m doing anymore 😛

I mean, I obviously know how to write, and I know how to look at dances and determine whether they are decent or not; I guess I mean the conclusions I’m drawing are basically a roll of the dice these days, because the results of this show aren’t really making much sense to me anymore. In what universe does an Olympic figure skater somehow tumble into the bottom two with a Superbowl champ, while reality stars with marginal dance skills end up safe??? Last night’s results would have been unheard of ten years ago on this show – hell, even three years ago on this show. Granted, Vernon was not as adept as the majority of the NFL players we’ve had on this show, and Johnny got RIDICULOUSLY low-balled on his score this week – but I guess the only conclusion I can reasonably draw is that not many people are actually voting (or voting consistently), and it’s causing the results to become unpredictable from time to time. There’s also the fact that you can now vote ten times PER COUPLE, per voting method, which I think is muddling things – where people used to have to put all their eggs in one basket, they can now put the same amount of eggs in multiple baskets; this only adds to the total number of points (and thus diminishes the power of each vote) and just seems to result in the needle not moving as much when you combine scores and votes. Add to this the fact that TPTB seem intent on keeping Monica (or Val) around despite a mediocre performance thus far, and I’m not sure what to make of things anymore. I feel like the “perpetual present” that the pandemic has left us all stuck in is seeping into every aspect of my life: it’s hard to think about what’s going to happen in the future, when each day just seems like an interminable NOW with no end in sight. Christ, this pandemic has made me nihilistic.

So we’re past the halfway point of the season, and we’ve eliminated 1/3 of the cast – so what type of narrative seems to be taking shape for the finale? Hard to say. For once, I don’t feel confident claiming any one person will for sure win – I tend to think Kaitlyn (and probably AJ, too – unless they fall into the bottom together) are likely going to get saved by the judges no matter what, but when it comes to winning…all bets are off. Will Nev make the finals? Maybe…maybe not. Nelly, Justina, and Jeannie are all big question marks for me, too – I think it’s equally possible that any of them make the finals or get eliminated just short of them. My gut says they can’t protect Monica forever, and if Skai keeps having off-weeks, I don’t think she sticks around, either. No idea what to make of Chrishell anymore, as it feels like Gleb could walk center stage and take a dump and still get glowing reviews for their routine. And is Johnny being set up as a shock elim in the coming weeks??? Could be…or last night could have been an anomaly. And despite Derek usually making the right call, my confidence in the judges this season choosing the correct couple when saving from the bottom two has waned – I tend to think they may be getting instructed to “make things interesting” from the control room, and may vote in a way that they wouldn’t normally. Hence, Carrie Ann’s (downright idiotic) choice to save Vernon & Peta over Johnny & Britt.

So Derek graced the DWTS stage for the first time in 3 years, and I daresay that was probably the only glimmer of hope DWTS has for a possible choreo Emmy nomination next summer – and given that perennial heavy-hitter SYTYCD did not air this year, it’s possible DWTS could eke out a nod along with some of the routines from World of Dance. Or who knows, maybe they won’t even bother to nominate anyone in that category – seems like a very 2020 outcome 😉 Loved this paso, and it felt like the culmination of all the years Derek spent using DWTS and the MOVE tours as a “test kitchen” for some of his wilder choreography ideas. Paso was always his favorite dance to choreograph, so the choice made sense; it was also nice to see how far Hayley has come in her ballroom and Latin technique, as some of her early days dabbling in it were a bit…shaky. I daresay her Latin technique bests Allison’s now, though, so if they ever went shopping for female pros again in the future (if there is one…), I think she’s a logical choice.

As most of us had predicted, Vernon left us this week – and while it was disappointing, I caught a bit of his GMA appearance this morning, and he seemed to have a very upbeat attitude about his elim, and was generally grateful for the experience. I think he had plateaued in terms of his dancing, too, so I don’t know that he would have fared well when they would have started doing 2+ dances per week. Glad he got to go out on a positive note, though – his cha-cha was a fun tribute to his grandpa and I think he had a lot of fun. Read more..

October 21, 2020 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 29, Week 4 – Power Rankings

So what are we gonna call last night? “Special Dance That is Meaningful to Some of the Contestants” night, sponsored by The Backstreet Boys(TM)?

Honestly, without a unifying theme (and with Tyrant just repeating “special and emotional dances”), it felt a bit aimless last night – you had contestants like Skai and Anne giving very emotionally charged stories and performances, and then you had Monica and Nelly half-heartedly dancing along to songs they didn’t even seem to like. Should have just called it “Most Memorable Year” or “Personal Story” week and let that guide things.

So that aimlessness spilled over into the elimination, which we had plenty of time for, but which somehow still got royally FUBAR’d. While I agree with Heidi’s sentiment that Tyrant was marginally less annoying last night than in previous weeks, all that went out the window for me the minute she started screeching “My cards were wrong! It’s the control room’s fault!” when the big elimination gaffe was revealed. All I could think was “Bergeron would have never thrown the crew under the bus like that.” He would have made some cool, off-the-cuff quip about live television that made us all chuckle, and then moved right along with adjusting course to correct the error. And then once it was made clear that the correct bottom two were Anne and Keo and Monica and Val, she barked at the judges to hurry up an render a verdict, so she had more time to yap about 80s night as the credits rolled. If it wasn’t clear before, it’s abundantly clear now: Tyrant is only ever looking out for number 1.

So we lost Anne and Keo, and that was the first elimination this season that left me feeling disappointed. There was something so refreshing about Anne’s performances – she always seemed to commit fully, and just let her flag fly out on the floor. And she always hyped up Keo, which I appreciate 🙂 And while her story about getting blackballed for dating Ellen back in the day is absolutely heartbreaking, there’s another infuriating layer to the story that didn’t get mentioned: Weinstein actually exposed himself to her and demanded sex around the same time, and then blackballed her further when she rejected him. That poor woman couldn’t get a decent job in Hollywood for YEARS as a result of the one-two punch of the Ellen relationship fallout and Weinstein being Weinstein, unchecked. Overall, I’m glad she was on this season (and I’m glad she got to tell her story), but there were other couples I would have gladly sent home first…it is what it is. Read more..

October 6, 2020 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 29, Week 3 – Power Rankings

What can I say about Disney night that I haven’t already said in season 28, season 27, season 25, etc.? Not much. It’s the same 2-hour long Disney commercial that it has always been, with dances (usually poorly) shoehorned to fit (overused) songs, and costumes that feel like plagiarized essays – “yeah, you can copy mine from last season, but change a few things so it’s not so obvious.” That much I kind of expected – but I’m also dealing with the added complication this season of still having TOO. DAMN. MANY. COUPLES. It’s enough of a mental load to remember them all at the end of the night, and on top of that, we’re still getting really truncated dances – which is beneficial to some (marginal dancers like Chrishell) while detrimental to others (decent dancers like Skai, who seems to take a few bars to really hit a stride). With 13 couples remaining, next week will basically feel like a regular premiere night, and we’re already in week 4. We’re gonna have to start trimming some fat (and quickly) if we want to get whittled down to a 4-couple finale before Thanksgiving.

Tyrant was still up to her usual “look at meeeeee!” claptrap with her Minnie Mouse ballgown and absurdly long wig, but dare I say she may have dialed things back a just teensy bit this week? At the very least, the judges seemed to get more time to critique, while we seemingly only had to endure one dumb Tyrant question posed to each couple instead of multiple, increasingly painful ones that the celebs struggled to answer eloquently (or diplomatically). Don’t get it twisted – this show is still much harder to endure than necessary, owing to Tyrant’s presence (and Bergeron’s absence); but this week felt fractionally less painful.  Think someone pulled rank and told her to pipe down after last week’s sh*tshow?

So “that b***h Carole Baskin” got sent packing this week, and I hope that means I don’t have to hear any more bitching about how upset some of you were that “Derek saved her!” last week. You guys do realize the judges collude on who to save/ditch, right? So even though it appeared that Derek “got the deciding vote”, the three of them had already decided who was staying and who was going, and it was just a matter of what order they revealed their votes in to maximize suspense. And Carole had to have more than one vote to stay, yet nobody seemed as upset with Carrie Ann as they were with Derek.  My god, I worry about the intelligence quotient of the voting public these days *facepalm*. Anywho, it was her time to go – and I think that’s why they handed her samba as her style this week to ensure it, as nearly no one nails that dance and even the good ones usually just barely flirt with proper technique.  Carole basically tiptoed carefully through her dance – no bounce, not much rhythm, but I will credit her with generally keeping in step with Pasha. And I think Carole may have been saved from complete embarassment when Tyrant hit her with this gem of a question: “So how does Pasha compare with the cats?” That’s like someone asking me how Mama Spence compares to the spreadsheets I use to make budgets at my 9-5. I dunno – I worry about both of them making dollars and sense? Da fuq. Is anyone rehearsing these questions with Tyrant before the show, or is she just improvising them on the fly???

Read more..

September 30, 2020 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 29, Week 2 – Power Rankings

Welcome to “Dancing with Tyra Banks! And 15 Other Famous People But Mainly TYRA BANKS!!! Did We Mention TYRA BANKS??? WE ARE CONTRACTUALLY OBLIGATED TO SAY HER NAME AT LEAST 50 TIMES PER SHOW, SEND HELP!”

For anyone still able to hold onto the notion that Tyra “is doing better than we thought she would”, I admire your optimism, but I’m completely over her after only 2 weeks. Every time she asks an awkward (and usually frivolous) question after a couple gets their judges’ critiques (which are cut woefully short), or we have to hear her make every interaction about herself in some way, or we’re forced to witness her awkward attempt at humor in the “smizing” cold open, I just think to myself “Tom Bergeron would have never stooped to this level, and he could have gracefully hosted this show with a blindfold on and his hands tied behind his back…and it would still be better than this drivel!” Erin would have been worlds better than this as well…and Samantha Harris…and even one-and-done host Lisa Canning. About the only previous host Tyra has beat is Brooke Burke-Charvet, owing to the fact that Brooke wasn’t much more than a barely-sentient (but very pretty) potato. At least Tyra has a certain trainwreck appeal that makes her somewhat entertaining to watch…

…so with the new(ish) voting format, as Heidi mentioned, we’ve kind of discovered that it may actually be more beneficial for a couple to dance in the first hour of the show (as opposed to the second); I don’t think it was a coincidence that they seemed to front-load the show this week with most of the good dancers (Nev, Skai, Johnny, Justina, AJ) and left more of the weaker dancers in the back half (Charles, Carol, Chrishell, Vernon, Anne). And I don’t think the order in which the couples were called “safe” from elimination was a coincidence, either, despite Tyra insisting that the couples were “in no particular order”; the earliest ones called safe (Kaitlyn, Justina, AJ, Johnny) are the ones I think the majority of us assumed would be the safest, and the last three standing (Chrishell, Carol, and Charles) were the three most of us had in the danger zone.  I find the fact that Skai was one of the last four standing to possibly be a bit of a warning shot – I’m wondering if she’s dealing with Disney Kid Syndrome(TM) and is struggling with votes.

Other noteworthy stuff? On the negative end, I’m not sure the cameras panning to the couples sitting in their socially-distanced balconies after watching another couple dance is a good thing – more often than not, the couples were either making strange (potentially shady?) faces, or were messing with their phones; at least once, the camera panned to an empty balcony for a few beats. On the positive end, we are getting to experience the saucy troll side of Derek – the passive aggressive “Good job! That’s all I have time to say!” to Jesse after being rushed along from giving a critique by Tyrant (I’ve decided it’s her new name, y’all, since she’s the airtime hoarder) was SENDING me, as was this Carrie-Ann trolling TiK ToK he posted the other day that has inspired me to resurrect my long-marinating “lift policing” post for later this week 😉 Seriously, I cannot wait to see what other sassy comedic GOLD this arrangement sends our way – this is what happens when you hire the most decorated former pro in DWTS history to judge, after he’s had a successful run judging another more high-profile show on a rival network and he has absolutely NOTHING to lose by being a bit of a little shit 😉

@derekhoughShe’s a stickler for lifts @dancingabc♬ original sound – Tucky

So we lost Charles & Emma, which wasn’t terribly surprising – I think most of us had Carole and Charles as our bottom two; really and truly, as much as everyone seems to want Carole gone, I do think the right decision was made – I thought Carole was slightly better than Charles both weeks. Charles, bless him, I just don’t think he was going to improve much more this season. Sweet man, sweet partnership with Emma…but just not meant to go the distance. Read more..

September 23, 2020 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 27, Week 8 – Power Rankings, Who Will Win?

Y’all, it’s been a week…hell, it’s been a season.  And if I’m being honest, this is one season that has felt like it has absolutely DRAGGGGGGED on – I’m not sure I’ve wanted a season to be over this badly since maybe season 11, when Bristol was sticking around like a bad rash. Strike that – season 14 was pretty bad, too, when William Levy was getting jammed down my throat every week. Season 20 wasn’t much better, given that it had been predetermined it was “Val’s season” from week 1 and it got monotonous pretty quickly. To put it plainly: I’m just plain ready for this season to be over, and have my life back for the next 5ish months. I’ve got plans in the pipeline 😉

So in the penultimate elim of the season (which was a double, thank goodness – a 5-person finale on a season where the finale is only 1 night is a bit much), we finally shook Grocery Joe loose (yassssssss) and also lost Juan-Note Pablo in the second “shocking” elim of the season.  Can’t say I was terribly upset about either one leaving us – Joe should have been gone in week 1, and was little more than a glorified weightlifting spotter in his dances on Monday night; Juan Pablo, while probably deserving of a spot in the finale, just never resonated with me as a person – and I apparently wasn’t alone, as he clearly wasn’t getting the votes to stay. I think it says something when we ALMOST get a rare show of vulnerability from Juan Pablo (talking about his mother beating cancer in his rehearsal package, and dedicating his dance to her), and then it was like “JK, I’mma still serve you macho Latin lover realness!” and he performed a dance that, while technically quite good, was little different than every other dance we got from him this season: all smolder and sexiness, and no vulnerability or emotion.  I will credit him for being (to my knowledge) the first and only real-live Argentinean to perform an Argentine tango on DWTS, but at the end of the day, I think he & Cheryl probably missed the mark a bit in the grand scheme of things – you have to be a good dancer to succeed on this show, but people also have to like you and care about you; and if you’re constantly serving the same bravado week after week, dance after dance, and not taking the time to show the viewers that you’re also human and have feelings, they’re probably going to tune you out after awhile, no matter how great your dancing is.

I’ve been getting quite a few questions about what I think the future of this show looks like, given the three-ring circus that this season has been. Unfortunately, I think it looks grim – can’t remember where I had this conversation, but Heidi, John, & I were talking recently about the future of the show, and either Heidi or John said “At this point, they’ve gotten what they wanted out of the show – they probably don’t really care what happens now, and will let the show continue its steady demise until they find something better to take its place.” Let’s face it: getting 25+ seasons out of a show where it stays a ratings juggernaut is not just good – it’s great.  Almost unheard of…so for DWTS to be taking a dive in season 27, it’s more than likely just the show running its course. Sure, there’s been some wonky stuff going on this season, but I’d chalk a lot of that up to overall viewership being down and less of a normalizing influence in the voting as a result; I don’t think it’s so much that the SHOW has changed, it’s the AUDIENCE moving on.  I have often found myself saying “I just want to see something I haven’t seen before!” for several seasons now – be it a new pro, some more “out there” choreographic risks, an unexpected celeb, etc. I can’t imagine I’m alone in that desire.  Given that the show has basically already called several audibles this season (rearranging the elimination schedule, changing the original plan for a 5-couple finale, and cutting the finale down to 1 night), I don’t think ABC would have any qualms cancelling a prospective spring season if it came down to it – really, the only evidence we have of a spring season in 2019 is an interview (which I haven’t seen myself) where Sharna apparently said she had “signed on for several more seasons, including the spring one”; given that the pros contracts are pretty open-ended, and being “on contract” just means you must avail yourself if they need you, I don’t think we can safely assume there’s going to be a spring season, just that Sharna is available for it if there is one. And someone also pointed out to me that the winter tour has now been extended through early March – if there was going to be a regular-length spring season, the cast would have already been announced at that point, and the couples rehearsing. At this point, I’m dubious that there’s going to be a spring season at all, but if there is, I think the best we can hope for is a shortened one, a la season 26. I’d personally be just fine with no spring season, as I’m going to be tripled up on my classes by that point and also job hunting out west. DWTS can come back in the fall, when I’m done with school, hopefully settled into my new digs in Denver, and with a lot more free time on my hands 😉 Read more..

November 16, 2018 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 27, Week 7 – Power Rankings

Welcome to season 27, where the decent dancers are in perpetual danger, and the more mediocre you are, the greater the likelihood you’ll stick around. Guys – this is not the dance show I fell in love with 13 years ago. This season is a strange, bastardized caricature of it – and that’s why this post has been hard to write.  It’s also been hard to try and make sense of the nonsense of this season in general, and I feel worthless when some of you come to me asking what to make of [insert nonsense here] or [insert wonky scoring here], and I’m not able to give you an intelligent explanation for it…because I don’t have one. It still tickles me that so many of you give a damn about what I write,  after all these years, and value my thoughts on this show. But this time around, I just don’t know what to tell you, other than “Yep, this season sucks.” I fear we’re possibly witnessing the death throes of DWTS – all good things must come to an end, I guess, and this show has paid the dividends for 13 years now, which is impressive and quite a bit longer than I thought it would be on the air. Just stinks that it’s going out in such an inauspicious way 🙁

It’s beyond me why reality competition shows even bother doing “country night” as a theme anymore – it only seems to appeal to a small subset of the audience, the music is often pretty cringe-y, and the attire is…questionable. Monday night’s show was no different – the opener was pretty sloppy, and even the guest singers seemed a bit bewildered and not quite sure what to do.  Additionally, I feel like the couples that got saddled dancing to songs performed live by the artists took a bit of a hit, as their choreography had to accommodate intermittent pans to the singer for their obligatory face time.  At the end of the night, I remembered very little, and cared even less about “country night”. Put it to bed, ABC.

As for who we lost this – John & DeMarcus were 2/3 of my favorite guys this season, and them getting taken out in one sweep was gutting. I would have GLADLY traded Joe, Bobby, Alexis, AND Juan Pablo if it meant keeping the two of them in the competition. I ended up enjoying John far more than I thought I would – he was actually a decent dancer, had great musicality, got along great with Emma, was excited to be there, had a nice journey, and was generally a likable, humble guy.  Unfortunately, I think the writing was on the wall where he was concerned – we saw it coming last week, and TPTB seemed to have decided his time was up. Then there’s DeMarcus – someone I thought for sure we’d see in the in the finale.  Not entirely sure what happened here – he was always one of the better male contestants, and was never a bad dancer in the same way that both Bobby & Joe are; he was also extremely likable and genuine, and vibed well with Lindsay.   Part of me thinks he just got lost in the shuffle between the general (but memorable) stink of Joe & Bobby, the three-ring circus of the Alanis/Alexan (have they decided on their ship name yet?) showmance, the gushing over Juan Pablo, and both Milo & Evanna having memorable journeys; part of the blame for that lies with the judges and their more middle-of-the-road scoring and critiques, which were usually unnecessarily tough on De. Then there’s also the small matter of his finger injury back in week 3 – as minor as it may have seemed in the grand scheme of things, it was as if the moment DeMarcus realized his finger was injured, sh*t got real.  I mentioned to someone on Twitter, but if you re-watch the video of it happening, there was a noticeable shift in his demeanor – he went from “Oh hell yeah!!!” to “Oh sh*t, this is bad!” in .3 seconds.  And part of me thinks he was never really able to shake it off totally – every dance from that moment on seemed a tad cautious and tentative. Who knows – regardless, I don’t think he or Lindsay deserved to go home, and on any other season, he probably would have had a free pass to the finale.  And the finale has suffered in quality with the lost off both John AND DeMarcus 🙁 Read more..

November 9, 2018 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

PureDWTS Season 27, Week 3 – Power Rankings

Welp…so much for the agenda-free season. Judges’ scores and critiques were a bit of a mess Monday night, as some okay dances were hyped and overscored while some very good dances were nitpicked and underscored. To what end? I think there’s certain individuals that are getting oodles of votes and possibly running away with the competition, and the judges have no qualms pointing out the faults in their dances and docking points as they see fit, and “leveling the playing field”, so to speak; others seem to be struggling to connect and resonate with the audience, so I think they’re the ones the judges are reluctant to really score and critique realistically, lest the individual get eliminated “before their time”.

File under the category of “bad ideas that should be scrapped and never mentioned again”: that damn camera on the celebs they had inset over their rehearsal package, so we could voyeuristically enjoy watching the celebs reliving the traumas they had picked for their “most memorable year” packages. Things like this are what I like to refer to as “grief porn” – exploiting the contestants emotionally for a dramatic edit, a la poor Laurie’s grief over her grandma’s death.  It’s gross, it’s sneaky, and it’s a cheap stunt. Just when I think TPTB have hit rock bottom with their tactics, they find a sub-basement. 🙁

So, we lost Nancy this week, a development that both Heidi and I saw coming – and I’m a tad disappointed, because I feel like Nancy was actually a really cool person and was not a bad dancer at all.  But it brings me to my next point: why do the female celebs seem to be dropping like flies, while the male celebrities are doing just fine? We’ve lost three ladies so far – and all of the guys are still standing. Some seem to want to blame the show, claiming that “female celebs, especially ringers, get treated so poorly – none of them will ever win again and it’s not fair, WAHHHHH!” but I go back to this point I made in my preseason “Why Hayley Didn’t Get a Pro Spot This Season” post: the male pros, as a whole, are not serving their celebs well. Since the departure of Derek (and to a lesser degree, Mark), we’ve been left with a crop of male pros that just don’t seem to know how to  harness the talent of their female celebs – or cultivate some talent in celebs that have not danced before. It’s not that people dislike the female celebs or have a specific type of disdain for female ringers; it’s that the male pros just don’t know how to present their partners in a way that makes viewers care.  It’s possible to win with a female ringer or a female non-ringer – just ask Derek; it’s also possible to lose with a female ringer (Val’s done it a few times) or lose with a female non-ringer (basically every male pro at some point) if you don’t present them properly. It took TPTB doing some heavy-duty interfering to ensure the Chmerkovskiy boys each got their first MBT (and both brothers had ringers to begin with!), since Derek & Sharna turning amputee non-ringers into contenders during those respective seasons posted too grave a threat to Maks & Val’s trophies. Then you look at Emma, who has become an expert at turning turd partners into gold; and Lindsay, who seems to build such a successful working relationship with all of her partners anymore that she’s become a finale mainstay; or even Witney, who has blossomed as a choreographer these past few seasons and is developing a knack for pulling surprising stuff out of partners that didn’t seem like anything to sneeze at on the surface. Really and truly, the current lineup of female pros has paid their dues and really proven that they’ve got the juice to make their partners succeed; the current male pros (with the exception of Brandon, and to a lesser degree, Alan) seem to just be coasting, and hoping for ringers season after season so they can get a free pass to the finale (except that sometimes that doesn’t even happen – hello, season 24). The male pros are holding out for their window of opportunity to open; the female ones aren’t waiting for it to open – they’re grabbing a sledgehammer and making their own damn window. The three male pros we’ve lost this season suffered from a failure to make their partners stand out – even if their partner was demographically screwed regardless, there are ways to at least make them memorable…and that’s where the failure lies. So if you’re whining about not ever getting a female winner again, don’t whine at us – go whine at the male pros letting them down. Read more..

October 10, 2018 I Written By

Ultrasound sales specialist by day, semi-knowledgeable DWTS fan by night...with a smattering of hair & makeup enthusiast, occasional model, baker, and crazy cat lady peppered in to make things REALLY interesting ;-) I might pee my pants in happiness if Donnie Wahlberg ever does DWTS - or if they ever use "Sunglasses at Night" as a paso doble.

Dancing with the Stars Season 27 – Post Week 3 Media

Here are a few things I ran across while surfing. Please don’t complain about what I post – if your favorite has a video that you don’t see here, tweet it to me at the PDH account. Happy to post it, I just don’t have time to go hunting for a lot of stuff.

Here’s Milo and Witney on ET talking Kardashians, Salsa and Riker Lynch.

DeMarcus and Lindsay talking about his injury and their scores.

Bobby Bones and Sharna

Jenna blogs about Weeks 3 and 4 and Jordan Kimball – who is an actual nut bar that grew on me after a while. An excerpt is below…click the link to read the whole thing.

I think adding in the trio next week is an awesome opportunity for Joe especially since our partner is Jordan Kimball. He exudes confidence and charisma, and they are great friends. I think it will be awesome to have another male figure in the rehearsal room. He’s gonna bring this masculine energy out of Joe. I think Joe’s going to feel safe out there and he’s going to be super pumped to do our salsa.

October 9, 2018 I Written By

I'm a nerd and proud of it. Two degrees in geology also means I love BEER. :-) I'm also a Derek lover - proud of that too. So don't scream at those of us on this site and call us a bunch of "biased Derek-lovers" - it's just ME. :-) It may sound like I hate DWTS at times, but really, I'm just a snarky nitpicker from way back. And I'm cynical and jaded too. But I do love DWTS. :-)