PureDWTS Season 28, Week 8: Power Rankings
He’s still here, y’all. đ
We’re only three weeks away from the finale, and we’ve eliminated half of this season’s cast. Assuming they eliminate one couple next week and another the following week, we’re looking at a four-person finale – and given that the judges seem disinclined to really do anything to help the situation, I think we need to start coming terms with the fact that’s he’s more than likely going to end up in the finals, barring any sort of extreme interference from production. As I predicted last week, this week’s bottom two was just a recycling of previous bottom 2 survivors, which makes me think it’s going to continue being such (sorry Ally, and possibly sorry Kel) until he finally ends up pitted against contestants that have also been able to steer clear of it thus far (read: Hannah, James, Lauren). I’ve seen some folks worried that he might win – while I’m not ruling it out completely, I’m also thinking (hoping) that his continued presence is lighting a fire underneath some viewers to vote for all the other couples, and with each week that passes there’s fewer and fewer people to spread the votes around to…so those that haven’t fallen into the bottom 2 yet are likely amassing bigger and bigger shares of the voting pie, which creates more pressure for his voters to pick up the slack. I’ve given up on the judges actually scoring him fairly – he should be getting 4’s, and not the overly-kind 6’s and 7’s that the judges are still throwing out. Got blocked by Carrie Ann (again) for telling her that she has no room to be “irritated” with the fans, when she’s actively contributing to him sticking around by copping out with her little 7 paddle. So we clearly can’t rely on the judges to actually drop the hammer. But if it’s any consolation, we confirmed this week that you can vote ten times per couple, per account online, so if you aren’t doing so already – go through and add ten votes for each couple EXCEPT HIM, then submit your votes, log out, and repeat with your other accounts. If we ride this hard, it could result in him falling into the bottom 2, where he can finally be flushed out…
So with this continued clownery, the question on everyone’s lips seems to be “Is the show going to be cancelled?” If you’re just asking for my opinion, I say if this is the type of nonsense we can look forward to for seasons to come, the show SHOULD be cancelled; however, the actual answer is quite a bit more complicated than that. Ratings are at their lowest; however, if ABC is going to cancel DWTS, they’re going to have to come up with something else to put in its time slot that can hold its own against The Voice, which airs concurrently on NBC. I don’t know that it’s going to be very easy for ABC to track down a new show to replace DWTS, but I could see them swapping it out – and I think the most likely candidate is American Idol. It’s currently airing on Sundays (which is actually considered a more competitive time slot than Mondays) and is pulling in roughly the same ratings as The Voice on Monday nights. Why ABC has such confidence in an outdated reality competition format is beyond me, but I could see them giving DWTS’ Monday night slot to Idol and either putting DWTS on Sundays or scrapping it altogether. I mean, they’ve got all manner of fluffy stuff they can pad Sunday night out with – America’s Funniest Home Videos, Kids Say the Darndest Things, Shark Tank, etc. However, AI has been airing in the spring, and is already greenlit for a spring 2020 season; will ABC take the risk of doing two seasons of AI in a year and over-saturating viewers? Can they even AFFORD to do so, given Katy Perry’s bloated salary? There’s a lot of variables to consider when it comes to cancelling DWTS, and while I can’t in good conscience condone several continued seasons of the shenanigans currently happening, I can’t say confidently that this show will be toast after this one. Will be interesting to see what (if anything) gets said about another season on finale night…if they don’t say anything, up-fronts in May of next year will be a key time to watch…
So we lost Kate & Pasha, which, while not unexpected, was still disappointing. I actually thought her jive was her strongest Latin dance, and was impressed and how bouncy and clean the legwork was – which made it all the more annoying when the judges seemed to downplay how well she did, and she ended up with the same score as Lauren for a dance that I thought was actually better. But boy am I glad that they were on this season, and that Pasha was a pro – as Len mentioned last week (I think), Pasha has forced all the other pros to up their game in terms of content, and it’s benefited just about everyone. You could tell Len was sad to see them go when he did press line after Monday’s show, so I guess that’s something… Read more..