PureDWTS Season 23, Week 10 – Power Rankings

It’s nights like last night that make me seriously question why I continue to watch DWTS, let alone write about it – because there was some seriously skeezy, very manipulative stuff going on, and the agenda could not have been more clear.  Someone on Twitter asked me last week how we get our predictions about who’s going home/how the judges are going to score/who’s going to get pimped or hosed correct so often – and last night I found myself seriously questioning whether it’s the fact that we’ve been doing this for 7 years now, and just sharpen our skills each season…or if the show has just gotten more and more obvious with their agenda, thereby just making it that much easier to predict what’s going to happen.  It’s a very disconcerting thought to be having…

…so while we’re on the topic of disconcerting things we saw last night, I’ll go ahead and get this out of the way and leave it up to you whether you continue to read after this point or not: I was very, very disappointed (and kinda disgusted) with how Laurie’s package about her grandmother’s death was handled. And before some of you turn your moral outrage to a fever pitch, know this: BEING DISAPPOINTED IN LAURIE’S PACKAGE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW LAURIE HANDLED HER GRIEF, AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH HOW THE PRODUCERS EXPLOITED IT. The very fact that I have to even preface this commentary with that makes me seriously weary of how emotionally unintelligent some DWTS fans have become, as I witnessed on Twitter last night, and does not give me a whole lot of hope for continued intelligent discussion in future seasons. But I found the way they chose to hone in on Laurie crying, lamenting the fact that she didn’t get one more trip home to see her grandma, and then playing the clip of her grandmother wishing her good luck at the end seemed like “emotion porn” – taking Laurie’s genuine grief and cobbling it together in such a way that it seemed extra devastating, and only seemed to rub Laurie’s face in her own sorrow.  It looked like Val didn’t warn her not to watch the package before their foxtrot, because she did seem very thrown-off by it, and a little choked up during her dance.  So many people feel the need to remind me each week that Laurie “is only 16”; so yes – given that, maybe it wasn’t in the best taste of the producers to create a package that could very easily have compounded the poor girl’s guilt about not getting to see her grandmother one more time. Also saw a lot of folks on Twitter justifying it with “well they did the same thing to Bindi” –  sorry, but Bindi’s father had been gone for 9 years when she did her season; Laurie’s grandmother passed away just a few days ago.  Big difference in the way one interprets grief immediately after a death and then several years after a death, and Derek at least had the forethought to warn Bindi not to listen to her packages, lest they affect her performance. Laurie kinda got thrown headlong into it – she handled it well, but am I alone in thinking that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t in the best taste to create a package that hinged upon Laurie’s guilt about not getting more time with her grandmother…and then kinda ambushing her with it? It is possible to create a package with a theme of remembrance that doesn’t victimize those grieving – we’ve seen this show do it. And given that I’ve had people forwarding me links to interviews this morning where Val has said that he actually knew about Laurie’s grandmother dying BEFORE she did and that the interview with her grandmother happened 10 weeks ago (and not last week, as the package led us to believe), makes me all the more weary of how the show handled the whole thing.  It stinks…bad.

Moving right along to another bone of contention from last night’s show – wonky/inconsistent/agenda-filled scoring/judging that was clearly meant to shield some while disadvantaging others.  James got nitpicked, so as to justify not tying Laurie with a perfect score; Calvin got severely low-balled, so as to keep him from getting too close to Jana; Laurie got treated with kid gloves; Jana got overly kind scores & critiques.  The judges copped out and gave everyone the same score on their trio, which basically just made the margins a bit smaller – something that I don’t think would have happened if Len had been there, and needless to say I cannot WAIT to have him back next week…although I have to wonder if he will just follow the company line and only award 9’s & 10’s.  We had already kinda gotten the feeling that Terra was a goner headed into this week, and the fact that they gave her a perfect 60 for the night was the final nail in the coffin, I’m afraid – Rob Wade got his ideal finale, which did not include a little person who was actually more technically proficient than at least one of the finalists.  Sad to see Terra go, because she was a good dancer and I got the impression she really was having fun on the show – but as with many sh*ttastic things that happen on this show these days, not entirely unexpected.

1.) Laurie & Val – I’ve already said my piece on “the package”,  so I’ll just say this: I wish Laurie peace and prayers during this time, and just hope that the show kinda exploiting her grief didn’t leave any lasting hurt. She did a great job with the “foxtrot” content she was given (I use the term “foxtrot” because that really felt more like a tango to me – and with the way Laurie punctuates her lines, it really looked even more tango-like), but I feel like Val got a bit of a free pass this week, because I don’t think the judges were prepared to do much real critiquing when it came to he & Laurie this week as a result of her loss.  Consequently, I feel like he may have fudged her samba “trio” as well – and again, I have to use quotation marks around “trio” because I don’t feel like Maks was really part of it in the same way that the other trios’ 3rd members were, and he really functioned more like a background troupe member.  While everyone else was toiling to include their +1’s in their choreography and help their celebs get used to dancing with 2 pros at once, Val & Maks seemed to create an excuse for Maks only doing a few bars of the dance with them before disappearing. Would also have liked to see Laurie close her thighs more when doing hip action, but that seems like an afterthought too, given that so many other things went overlooked by the judges last night.  She may only be ahead of James by 1 point score-wise, but I think that package set Laurie up with a pretty good sympathy storyline that will likely boost her votes headed into the finale.  Up until tonight, I would have told you that there was a decent chance that James could swoop in and steal the MBT – and while that’s still not out of the realm of possibility, I do think it’s going to be more of an uphill battle for James after this week’s events…

2.) James & Sharna – I’m sure some will roll their eyes and insist otherwise, but from an objective standpoint, I think James & Sharna were the only couple last night that was able to deliver fully in terms of both content and execution – they did a proper Argentine tango and a proper jive, there were zero mistakes that I could see (nitpicking of the tango by Carrie Ann notwithstanding), and their trio was an actual trio (meaning James danced with two pros – and not mainly one pro with a short guest appearance by another, like some other couples).  I wasn’t wild about the blindfolded-ness in their tango, simply because I feel like it’s already been done (and there’s not really a reason for it, anymore), but it at least got handled well, and I didn’t see any slip-ups.  Loved how James looked “in charge” the whole time – I love how his confidence has grown this season.  Thought the handstand at the end was a cool, unexpected finish that we haven’t seen before – and is a testament to his core strength.  Wonder what Maks has to say about James and his lack of muscle now, hmmm? 😉 Carrie Ann can take her imaginary “control” issues she saw and shove them where the sun don’t shine, along with the 9 she gave him.  Loved the jive trio – they did a great job of paying homage to James at the track (anyone that has seen him at a race, knows that he loves to jump rope in his fire suit, with the top half down) and I was actually really impressed by how clean his footwork was…by far the cleanest, most precise jive we’ve seen this season.  While I was one of the few familiar with James prior to the start of this season, even I’m finding myself pleasantly surprised each week with how well he’s pulling off these dances.  My only concern right now is “where do they go from here?” Interested to see what they have up their sleeve for the freestyle, since they’ve already kinda paid homage to racing with this trio.

3.) Calvin & Lindsay – If the ladies were the darlings last night that got generous scores and little in the way of actual critiques, then the guys were unfortunately the ones that seemed to get nitpicked to death – and the brunt of it unfortunately went Calvin’s way. That tango had a lot of potential, but I think it was just a bad day at the office for Calvin – that was the first time I think the height difference between he & Lindsay was glaringly obvious for me, and he seemed like he was struggling between moving big and managing to stay in step with Lindsay, and it resulted in a few stilted-looking movements and a minor slipup (which looked like it may have actually been Lindsay’s fault instead of Calvin’s, but whatever).  Plus that song has just been done to death on DWTS, and I’m not sure there was a way to make it super new, fresh, and exciting – although I must say I LOVED the high-kick-and-spin move Lindsay threw in for Calvin, and it made me sit up and take notice. I thought the judges low-balled him pretty bad, though – 8s? Are you kidding?! I would have given it at least straight 9’s, but god forbid Calvin get too close to threatening Jana’s score.  Luckily, he redeemed himself with his trio, which I actually thought had the best stunts and the highest level of difficulty of all the trios we saw last night – loved the tricks he was doing with Lindsay & Witney, and loved the overall rapport the three had – was very fun to watch.  I think him being the last called safe may stimulate some fans to vote for him, so I’m hoping he has the juice to get past Jana and ensure he finishes in the top 3.  I’ll be interested to see just how the eliminations get handled next week – will they eliminate someone at the end of Monday’s show? Or wait and do it at the beginning of Tuesday’s show, thereby giving the couples another night of points and votes to determine the top 4? If it’s the latter, I have to wonder if they’re trying to ensure Gleb (Jana) makes it to the top 3.  Just thoughts floating around my head…

4.) Jana & Gleb – If you were to play that song from Sesame Street that goes “one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just isn’t the same”, then I think the name that would pop into my head with regards to this season’s finalists is Jana’s, without question. In terms of both the content she’s been given and how she’s been able to execute it, I don’t think she even comes close to the other 3 finalists this season, nor do I think she’s had a significant amount of growth.  I would consider both of her dances last night to be the weakest of their respective rounds – both seemed bizarrely slow and not necessarily great examples of the dance styles they were meant to portray.  Jana was doing something weird with her neck again in the quickstep (and I think Julianne even pointed it out this time), but I really have to slap Gleb on the wrist more than anything, because he basically broke every commandment in the unofficial DWTS rule book when he choreographed that one: he wasted time at the beginning and end, he broke hold in the middle, he did a lift, and quite possibly the most offensive error – he somehow made that dance seem low-energy and rather boring.  Not that it really mattered, though, because he got called out on NONE of it, and the judges were generally all smiles about the whole thing. As for their trio – I can’t even really remember any really memorable moments, because it seemed more like a series of pretty poses and Jana smoldering into the camera than an actual hard-hitting paso doble. So overall – Jana had a pretty wishy-washy night, and benefited from some pretty significant propping-up by the judges.  And now that TPTB accomplished their apparent goal of getting Jana to the finals – I’m not sure they’re gonna feel inclined to do much more propping up, and I think she can only hope for 4th place, at best.  I think the only person left she MIGHT have the juice to get past is Calvin, and that would only be if she got perfect scores across the board next week on top of some very OTT gushing from the judges (and given that Len will be back, I think we may see the judges get a bit less…generous).  So yeah…I’d be shocked to see her get any better than 4th place.

So those are my (rather dismal) thoughts headed into next week’s finale…what are yours?