Here’s all kinds of post Week 5 media for your viewing pleasure. 🙂 Let me know if I missed anything important.
???? @Evy_Lynch and @keodancer gave our very own @Katie_Krause the spooky scoop on their purrrfect #DWTS Halloween plans. ???? pic.twitter.com/JXc2DLJJiO
— Entertainment Tonight (@etnow) October 25, 2018
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. :-)
Weird things happen when Disney comes to town. Wonky scoring, a fake-out jeopardy and almost-elimination…I guess we should unpack what all went down and see what can be inferred from it. Generally, I think the judges were out to give out as many points as they could reasonably get away with last night, to everyone except Joe; this accomplishes two things: it makes the voting margins very small (due to the larger number of total points), and also makes it harder for Joe to try and make up ground and potentially oust a better dancer. Given that we’re now on the hook for (2) double elims (and one of them is on night 1 of finale week), and we didn’t eliminate anyone this week, I’m thinking next week we cut (2) couples, when we’ve got the best odds of Joe at the very least falling into the bottom two. He doesn’t have to be the lowest on the totem pole; if they can just get him second-lowest, they can flush him out. As for the psych-out almost-elim – my little bird told me the couples were told by producers (after the fact, of course) that the two couples in jeopardy “were only picked for shock value, it wasn’t a ‘real’ jeopardy”. Be that as it may, I think that faux jeopardy will only have the effect of boosting votes for DeMarcus and Alexis – I think the former is doing fine, vote-wise, but I think the latter probably could use whatever boost they can give her. I think it’s interesting that they went more for “shock value”, when they could have actually utilized this jeopardy to boost someone that maybe needed help – Mary Lou comes to mind, as I have yet to find any super-passionate Mary Lou voters (except maybe Bill – I know you’re reading this, bruh) and there seems to be a lot of viewers that tend to forget about her by the end of the night. Then again, with 5 weeks down and 4 to go, they’ve gotta start lining things up for their ideal finale…
…which brings me to my next point: given that last night was the midpoint of the season, it’s time to take inventory of who I think is headed to the finale and who is probably not. I’ve been told by several people that Carrie Ann apparently said in her Instagram live that (5) couples go to night 1 of the finale (meaning we get five freestyles) and then there’s a double elim at the end of the night, and only the final (3) dance on night 2 of the finale. So somewhere in weeks 6, 7, and 8, we’ve gotta shed (4) more couples…meaning there’s a double elim at some point BEFORE the finale, and my guess is that it’s next week. My gut says they don’t let Joe anywhere near the finale, if they can help it – and Bobby’s probably not far behind him. Mary Lou just seems to be fading into the background, so I doubt she’s long for this show, either; I think the last cut is probably a toss-up between John and Juan Pablo – I think John’s actually connecting better with the audience, but I get the feeling TPTB are going to do whatever they can to ensure that the better dancer (Juan Pablo) makes it over the decent-dancing everyman. So that leaves us with Milo, DeMarcus, Alexis, Evanna, and either Juan Pablo or John headed to night 1 of the finale; of those, I think the final three SHOULD be DeMarcus, Milo, and Evanna. But given the sudden showmance angle with Alexis & Alan, and the fact that they seem to think Juan Pablo is the greatest thing since sliced bread, who knows what will happen.
Things I enjoyed from last night? Loved that they found ways to work in the junior pros and contestants, and that opener was the most unique one we’ve had in awhile – loved how may Disney Easter eggs they managed to throw in the background (loved Hayley trying to jam Cinderella’s slipper on Britt’s foot in the hallway 😛 ). As far as I’m concerned, Jason Maybaum can cohost with Berge anytime – that kid is a riot 🙂 Read more..
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.
It’s night 1 of the “two night Disney event” on Juniors & regular DWTS 😛 I’m expecting there to be some fairly heavy-handed marketing ploys on both shows, but at the very least, on Juniors the kids’ excitement about dancing to Disney songs is a bit more sincere and fun to see. Also crossing fingers that our technical difficulties here at Pure last week are behind us, as it didn’t seem like I got much conversation on the live blog thread last Sunday. Womp womp womp. Song and dance list here, spoiler post here. If you want a recap/rundown of last week’s episode, week 2 live blog here and week 2 postmortem here.
Things to keep in mind headed into tonight’s show: this episode was taped on August 3rd, which was the first week where the kids had to learn (2) dances in basically three days (basic schedule this season was rehearse M-Tu-W, camera block Thur, tape Fri/Sat, mandatory law-required day off on Sun); we might start to see the signs of fatigue a bit more tonight. In light of last week’s semi-shocking elim, keep in mind that it may not necessarily be the lowest-scoring couple headed home…it may be more likely to be a decent scoring couple that maybe just didn’t “pop” so much. Oh, also – Kim Kardashian is apparently on tonight’s episode, to *snicker* give Sophia & Jake tips on their performance. Oh, that’s rich…coming from the woman who went home in week 3 of her season (after a very underwhelming performance) and was also once kicked offstage at a Prince concert for not dancing. Can’t wait to see what kind of wisdom she has to impart on the kids 😛
Kids look so darn cute in their costumes 🙂 Alana looks very pretty and mature in her Belle costume. Read more..
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.
I’ve said it before, but here it goes again: I actually usually hate Disney night, and it’s not because I “hate Disney” or “had an upsetting childhood” (Twitter sure is full of recreational psychologists these days) – it’s because, like many a theme week, it tends to force the pros to shoehorn their choreo to fit songs that aren’t all appropriate for the dance they’ve been assigned, and the end result is usually…painful to behold, and a detriment to the celeb partner’s scores. However, I will say this: maybe my personal bar was set pretty low, but I actually found myself enjoying last night’s show, on the whole. Most of the pros (with the exception of maybe three) seemed to bring their A-game and actually churn out some respectable and entertaining dances, that still managed to stay true to the Disney movie they were assigned; granted, there were still some eyebrow-raising scoring issues and the general ick of Chmerlachey in its death throes, trying wayyyy too hard to stay on our radar, but all in all, I found the show enjoyable…even with having to watch it on a dodgy live stream on my iPad due to Monday Night Football. For the first time in PureDWTS history, Heidi’s Titans were playing my Colts on MNF – so we both were on the live stream struggle bus, but thankfully, our server issues here at Pure seem to have been fixed by our latest update, so we hope more of you will stick around to chat with us now 🙂 Read more..
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.
Anyone else missing Derek & Mark (and their choreography) something fierce right about now??? Because my god – if last night wasn’t an exercise in choreographic futility for some of our pros, then I don’t know what the hell it was. On top of that, the judges seemed eerily kind to just about everyone (except Nick, which we’ll get into later), which left me with this unpleasant sense of foreboding for most of the show – like I was waiting for something bad to happen, but I wasn’t sure what. Basically, the same feeling I had while watching the first 20 minutes of last season’s Game of Thrones finale – but thankfully, when it all played out, I felt less like Margaery & more like Cersei, because something that Heidi & I had be predicting would happen eventually, happened: Heather got outsted in a “shocking” (but not really, if you actually think about it) elimination. We had been saying she was the most likely candidate for the token “shock” elim this season, but I don’t think we were anticipating it happening this early on – I myself had her making it to at least week 7, I think. But when you take into account the turd of a routine her pro foist upon her last week, and the fact that most of the general viewing audience couldn’t really get past her basically being a professional dancer herself, she followed the basic formula for getting “Sabrina’d”: the minute a skilled dancer dips below a certain score threshold, they get sent home because they Just. Aren’t. Getting. The. Votes. If you want to see a breakdown of just how few votes Heather was getting (or rather, just how much better than Heather everyone else was doing), go reread Heidi’s Dancing By the Numbers. I wish I could say I was disappointed by a good dancer getting sent home before some less-skilled ones, but I made no secret of it that I never really found myself enjoying Heather’s performances – and it was a combination of lack of connection to the audience on her part, and just plain subpar choreography from Maks on the other. Add in the fact that Maks managed to find TWO ways to proverbially spit in Alan’s face last night, and I’m left saying “Toodles, Heather & Maks – don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!” Not gonna lie, though: part of me would love to see Alan as a pro next season, and have Maks left out in the cold – karma could be such a perfect bitch 😎
Which brings me to a few notes on demographics. I think I warned everyone a month ago that Chris, Erika, Heather, & Normani were the four most likely to struggle with fanbase issues this season – three of them are now gone. You Harmonizers still feeling so confident about Normani’s voting fanbase? I saw quite a few folks wringing hands after it was announced that everyone on the girls’ team was in jeopardy, and many of them seemed convinced that Nancy was the one headed home. You guys do realize that she aligns almost perfectly with the main viewing demographic of the show, right? A middle-aged Olympian with an inspiring backstory? Please help me understand why you thought a C-list-at-best, 30-something professional dancer from a 2-years-defunct teen tv show that was being given highly mediocre choreo by her partner was somehow going to outlast that Olympian, who so far has thrived and been given solid routines by her partner? It’s important to remember that sometimes, this show is about everything EXCEPT the dancing – in this case, the fact that Heather was already a great dancer didn’t matter to a lot of folks. If anything, it seemed to turn them off. They seemed to prefer Nancy’s journey to Heather’s already-professional polish. I also think Nancy has come off far more relatable and down-to-earth than Heather ever did on the show – and trust me when I say that can make a bigger difference than a few points, sometimes.
As for the rest of the show – Nick was an ok guest judge; seemed excited to be there and tried to give insightful critiques, but I think he came across a tad disingenuous at times. He also seemed like a bit of a yes-man, and had been fed a list of instructions on what to say and to whom (“Make sure you mention that Normani could win this whole thing! And don’t go easy on Nick V.!”) But I was pleased to see he gave Rashad a “10” when the other judges were whipping out 9’s – seemed to make up for Carrie Ann’s uncalled-for “7” last week. Opener seemed bland, like it was an afterthought – “Crap, what are we gonna do for the opener this week??? IDK, just…line everyone up or something…” Can’t say I missed Julianne too much – guess the Move Beyond tour didn’t leave any time for the “Ballroom is soooo different than what Heather does!” apology tour this week…and now Heather’s gone. Wuh wuh wuhhhhh. Read more..
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.
Well, thank god that’s over – yes, kids, I actually hate Disney week. Sue me. The first time they did it (in season 18), it was cool; but each successive season got progressively less…magical, and more…of a chore to watch. I find that, out of all the theme weeks, it’s the one most likely to force the songs to fit the wrong dances, and to get so caught up in production value that the dance becomes a bit of an afterthought, and the costumes/sets/animations/etc. dominate. Much like my general opinion of Disney these days – just overwrought with commercialization. And I kinda felt that commercial aspect last night more than previous Disney nights – some of the dances felt more like advertisements for upcoming Disney movies, or promotion for lesser-known musicians. I guess when Disney owns ABC, this is to be expected – if it don’t make dollas, it don’t make sense, kids. But I did like the intro, because it was something different – and say what you will about Alfonso, but he has ALWAYS been there for the show when they need him, whether it’s filling in for Tom when his dad died, actually giving insightful critiques as a guest judge, or just being supportive and being in the audience week after week. I feel like he really gets a bum rap sometimes, as well as the unfair label of being the biggest male ringer the show has ever had – but that’s a discussion for another place…
And now we move onto the “stay woke” segment of the rankings – because there was some serious manipulation going on last night, and you didn’t exactly have to be a rocket scientist to see it. There was gross underscoring, gross overscoring, vague criticism not really rooted in anything substantial, vague praise not really rooted in anything substantial, and strategic placement of people in jeopardy and in safety. The funny thing is, you can really tell that there’s new EP’s at the helm – Conrad & Rob were both a lot stealthier with this kinda stuff; with Joe & Ashley, it’s amateur hour. They’re the B-squad puppeteers that were thrust into lead roles as Muppets, but we can totally see their hands up the asses of some of the contestants. If you haven’t yet read Heidi’s post about manipulation, you totally should – it’s eye-opening. So what do I make of all of it? I think David, Rashad, & Simone are probably running away with the bulk of the votes, Heather & Normani may not be getting as many as TPTB had anticipated they would, I don’t think they’ve decided what to do about Nancy yet, and Bonner & Nick are pretty disposable to them at this point. Will their machinations work? Not to the degree they’re hoping, I don’t think. Time will tell, and I get the impression that the viewers may be wisening up to the funny business – I know a lot of the readers here have.
So Erika left us…and I’m left without a ton to say other than “oh well…it is what it is.” Her elimination has been the LEAST disappointing one to me so far this season, mostly because I tended to forget her week after week – that kind of thing tends to happen when you basically do the same dance each week, with just a few tweaks. I enjoyed her Viennese waltz last night, and was glad we FINALLY got to see a different side of her (and she even showed vulnerability!) – but it was unfortunately too little, too late. Really hoping we don’t get another “look at how rich & sexy I am!” dance at the finale. Interesting to note: her exit left us with perfectly even numbers of men & women left for the girl groups vs. boy bands team dance next week. Coincidental or intentional? You decide. Read more..
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.
Five years ago, I sat on my couch, slack-jawed and speechless over the fact that TPTB had managed to oust a season-long fan favorite and great dancer from the finale in favor of a member of the ABC family advancing.  I didn’t think it was possible that anyone on this show could have gotten more screwed-over than Ralph Macchio was in season 12, in order to allow Chelsea Kane into the finals. I’ll be damned if history didn’t repeat itself last night with Wanya Morris, quite possibly one of the most hard-working, consistent, passionate, and entertaining contestants this show has ever seen, being sacrificed in favor of the decent-but-unmemorable ABC family member, Ginger Zee. And it seems to sting even more this time, because I feel like it all came down to the “hanky slip heard ’round the world” – a relatively minor snafu that the judges decided to make a molehill of, and brutally underscored Wanya last week, while sheltering Ginger with some very cushy scores on some pretty ho-hum dances. Had that underscoring (and overscoring) not happened last week, I have decent reason to believe we’d be looking at a different finale lineup. But when it comes down to it, I guess it’s more important to ensure the company gal advances over the popular guy that isn’t part of the family, no matter how talented he may be. Good luck defending this decision, ABC – judging from the shock and dismay I saw on Twitter, you may get quite a bit of backlash for this one.
As for the good news about last night – I did manage to get 2/3 of my dream finale, with Nyle & Paige advancing, and with Antonio, the weak link in this competition since Doug left, finally getting ousted. To the Steelers Nation – guess y’all aren’t as mighty as you claimed to be, huh? I daresay with all the outrage about Wanya getting ousted, I barely heard a peep from those disappointed about Antonio going home. And FWIW, Wanya put on one helluva show – dude was 100% in the zone last night, and didn’t have a single stumble. Just makes it all the more of a glaring omission for him to not make the finale.
So for the first time, this week’s scores are being rolled into the totals for the finale – I invite you all to contemplate why that might be. Given that we’ll see the freestyles next Monday before the final set of votes, these power rankings are somewhat moot, as I’ll do another set next Monday. But given that they’ll actually be using the judges’ scores from this week, I do think it’s possible to predict who might have the advantage headed into the finale…and who might struggle a bit more. So take these rankings as who I think would win/be the runner-up/come in 3rd if the winner were to be decided tomorrow. Read more..
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.
*shaking head* Still trying to reconcile the fact that Ginger is getting heaped with praise and given perfect scores, when her dances are about as exciting to me as watching paint dry/water boil/grass grow/British Parliamentary proceedings/etc. Yes, I know she’s a company gal; but I still don’t really understand what the benefit would be to DWTS to push her as hard as they have been. Are they changing narratives in the 11th hour, and gunning for a 2nd MBT for Val after all? Are they trying to keep the GMA casting pool fruitful for future seasons? Is this image rehab for Val the social media sociopath? Or was last night just part of the ruse – that maybe Ginger isn’t finale bound after all, and they were just giving her a nice send-off? My head spins trying to make sense of it. The grim reality is, though, that tonight’s tongue bath of Ginger may have dashed our hopes of a Nyle/Wanya/Paige finale – and we may see one of those three heading home in next week’s double elim instead of advancing to the finale, despite the fact that those 3 have been the most consistent and entertaining this season. Buckle in, kids – next week is probably going to hurt.
I love how they touted the Judge’s Challenge (or whatever the hell they were calling it) as a “brand new dance” – bitch please, that was just a combo of the dance duels from season 18, the judge’s challenge from season 20, and the “America scores” fiasco from season 21. Three shitshows rolled into one, for your viewing pleasure. The scores ended up being a complete cop-out, though, with each dance receiving the same score – and while I saw a lot of folks up in arms about it, I have to say I was a tad relieved; I don’t think any of the 3 dances really passed muster, and each had their own set of faults to contend with. But giving them all the same score does two things: it makes the margins much closer, so it’s easier for someone at the bottom of the leaderboard (read: WANYA) to claw their way outta the bottom two; and it basically just throws it back to the fans…he or she with the most votes, advances, with slightly less power given to potentially skewed judges’ scores. The judges’ dance didn’t really help anyone (except maybe Wanya, in a roundabout kinda way), but it also didn’t really hurt anyone, either. It’s pretty much all on the fans, at this point – the second dance just leveled the playing field a bit.
As for Jodie – she had a good run, and she went out on a high note; Keo probably grew more in this season than he has in all 3 of his previous seasons combined. I’d call that a win for both, and for what it’s worth, Jodie actually seemed a tad relieved to be heading home. I think she had wanted to do the show for quite some time, and unfortunately she got cast on a season where the competition was unusually fierce. On a more “normal” season, I think she would have EASILY made the finale; but I think the pressure really got to her this season, both in terms of trying to do well and trying to emotionally support her partner. And hey, it dovetailed nicely into her starting filming for season 2 of Fuller House today 🙂 And also for what it’s worth – I think Keo ended up being the right kind of partner for her. I think she was too emotionally fragile to deal with a critic like Val or an Artem week after week, she was too tall for Sasha, and I can’t imagine anyone else partnering Paige than Mark. It worked out, and hopefully Keo can come back next season as a more seasoned pro. Read more..
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.
I feel as though now is a good time to remind everyone of a very important thing to heed when watching the rehearsal packages: BEWARE THE EDIT. Last night, we saw two packages that very clearly illustrated how the tone of a package can get skewed with the right editing – they made Nyle, the well-loved, down-to-earth frontrunner seem like a self-absorbed egomaniac; and they took Antonio, the lazy narcissist who has only put in an average of 10 hours of rehearsal time for the first 5 weeks of the season, appear to be a hard-working, misunderstood victim of his pro’s apathy. That latter in particular made me wanna toss my cookies, because as we reported (and as it’s been parroted all over Twitter) – Antonio has done nothing but make excuses for his lateness/lack of rehearsal time, and then apparently spent 45 minutes ranting to the confessional camera about how Sharna has checked out of their partnership and he’s “putting her on notice”. He failed to assume any responsibility whatsoever for their partnership failing to “boom”, cast all the blame onto her, and came across as chillingly aggressive – and yet, because of the edit he was given (and the subsequent falling into line that the judges did), he appeared to be the uber-dedicated “comeback kid” this week, and managed to skate by with nary a negative word uttered about a routine that would probably gotten torn to pieces if it had been performed by Nyle, Wanya, Paige, or even Von. On the other side of the coin, I’m fairly certain poor Nyle got baited into one of the many loaded questions production loves to ask the celebs in order to illicit some of the juicier sound bytes we hear in packages – I’m guessing it was something like “Who is your biggest competition this season? Do you think you’re sexier than anyone in the cast? Who do you see yourself beating in a wet t-shirt contest?” Given that I’ve heard nothing but praise for how Nyle was on ANTM (“the nicest guy EVER” is a phrase that gets tossed out a lot), I find it hard to believe that he’d suddenly decide to start seriously throwing shade and bragging about himself. He was JOKING, guys – but because of the edit he was given, it was made to appear serious. I’m guessing Tamar was also somewhat joking last season when she got baited into saying “I’m the best”, and I’m sure Nastia didn’t set out to come across as the icy bitch they painted her as during the infamous bad edit of season 20. Just something to keep in mind when things start feeling…off.
God bless Doug – I do think he really gave it his all this season, and for what it’s worth, I actually found myself really enjoying his Bollywood routine tonight. Karina was smart to keep it simple, and Doug kept up surprisingly well. But I do feel like he had reached a point where he wasn’t really having fun anymore, and the stress was maybe wearing on him – so I didn’t get the impression that he was all that broken up about leaving tonight. He was thankful for the experience – but he seemed ready for the ride to stop. But with Doug gone, that leaves us in an very sticky situation: there are really no more “bad” dancers left – everyone remaining ranges from decent (when he’s trying) to great. Which means the eliminations are gonna get painful from here on out, particularly this double one we’ve got coming up next week. Given who we saw in jeopardy last night, it’s entirely possible we could lose one of the stronger dancers – and that those just skating by may end up outlasting the better dancers, if people don’t start voting. Hope you did! Otherwise things could get pretty heartbreaking, pretty fast…
Can someone please explain to me the strange fixation Val has with being half-naked for no real reason at least once in every show? More often than not, multiple times? Twice last night, we saw him shirtless (once when he was also in his underwear) – and for the life of me, I cannot figure out why and how that fit choreographically with the dances he was doing at the time. I’m all ears if someone has an intelligent explanation… Read more..
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.
The old adage is true: you really can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and the Maks we saw last night was basically the same hypocritical foot-in-the-mouth bonehead that we saw when he was still a pro – soap-boxing about lack of content, while conveniently forgetting that he himself was known for choreographing full routines of d*cking around and “messin’ about” when he was a pro; and then there was some suspicious scoring…Maks conveniently gave his 3 highest scores of the night to lil bro’s original partner, lil bro’s switch partner, and his fiancee’s original partner…and also gave an unusually kind critique to his fiancee’s switch partner, despite him not being all that great. Basically, it was a good night to be on the DWM payroll, or paired with someone that was on the DWM payroll – and if you weren’t, watch out…cause Maks was comin’ for you & your “lack of content”. Good luck with the tour, bruh – cause I don’t see them offering you a permanent spot at the judges’ table anytime soon.
That’s not to say that Maks was the only judge on-notice last night – Len seemed to parrot everything Maks said, and Maks seemed to parrot everything that Len said, and both picked very interesting week to suddenly crack down on “lack of content”. Since some of you seemed to be getting it twisted on Twitter, let me make one thing clear: I’m not saying “it’s ok to not have content”. Hell, I’ve found myself complaining about it quite a lot this season, read through my previous rankings – it’s been a definite problem. But I do think they picked a lousy week to suddenly be so concerned about it after not batting an eye for 4 weeks – switch week is one week where I think the judges need to keep in mind that all of the couples are working with a handicap: they all only have about 5 days to build a rapport and create a routine for someone that they haven’t already been dancing with for a month and a half, and they’re all somehow expected to crank something out that is every bit as good as something the celeb’s original partner would be able to pull out of them at this phase of the competition. Nobody is really working at 100% capacity. Long story short? Switch week is tough, and is probably NOT the time to suddenly go for the jugular and “make an example” of some pros’ choreography at the expense of their celeb partners. There is a time and a place – and it’s not here or now. I was actually a bit thankful for Carrie Ann & Bruno last night, who seemed to soften the blow a bit by at least throwing out some positive/constructive things with regards to the celebs’ performance when all Len & Maks could do was rant about content and take the pros to task.
As expected, nobody went home last night; but with the scores and votes from last week and this week getting combined in order to determine who gets the boot, we’re to the point where we’re really going to start seeing who’s getting the votes (and who isn’t), and we may be heading into shock elim territory – a lot of the “shocking” (but not really, when you think about it) eliminations from the past always seemed to happen when we got a huge dump of points and multiple weeks of combined scores. It makes the margins smaller, and therefore makes it a lot easier for someone at the bottom of the scoreboard to overcome a deficit – which makes good dancers with good scores (but dubious voting fanbases) a target. Was Maks’ comparison of Jodie to Sabrina a warning? Guess we’ll see. Other random thoughts? Maks really needs to stop name-dropping Meryl when he wants to make a point – Maksyl was one of the most farcical and disingenuous pairings we’ve seen on the show, and it was 2 years ago. Get some new material, dude. James Bay sounded breathy and bizarre. Ginger’s hubby? I like that dude’s style 😉 And the Indycar fangirl in me was giddy that James Hinchcliffe was in the audience last night – gives me hope that we might see another driver on the show soon!
NOTE: Just a reminder – these are just like any other power rankings; it’s still a measure of how likely or unlikely I think a couple is to go home (and remember, it’s their original partner that they would get eliminated with). I will do a separate “switch up post-mortem” like I did last season, where I rank the pros by how well they did or didn’t handle the switch. Read more..
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.
