Add me to that list because aside from Joey's odd neck spasm, they were great tonight. I still think they got the short end of the stick from the judges and were a better overall team than Kelly/Alec. It was the choreography they chose that none of the judges cared for which I think was too 'performancy' and not technical enough.

BWAH! I thought the same thing! (And that, in and of itself, should scare you to no end.)

THe reason that Kelly got slammed is because they didn't want to make her winning too obvious! Also she openly sucked in the beginning but with these new dances especially tonights free-style they were able to hide her suckieness! I am just so pissed that the right star DIDN'T win!

TOTAL WORD to everyone who said that Joey and Ashleigh should have been in the final 2 and would have kicked ass tonight! They were my favorite and it was AWESOME to see them tonight!!

My tape stopped just before the "winner" was announced. It even has better taste than the judges and I don't have to see that trophy even though I missed most of it the first time. Don't think I'll be tuning into Good Morning America.

Cooternoonan, I'm pretty sure his picture is up on awfulplasticsurgery.com. It looks like it has settled from what it was, though. John & Charlotte have officially been put in a corner. I wonder how many votes they lost by. Is that posted anywhere?

Trista's rumba was better than it was; more relaxed. She literally let her hair down.

Not to mention the Sonny/Carly & Jason/Courtney fans who were probably all voting for any couple that WASN'T her. I never thought that Kelly and Alec were the worst at any point in this competition.

(raises hand) To my surprise, I was a wee bit dissapointed that it didn't happen. All this build up for nothing! Just like this ending! Hee.

To me, it didn't matter a lot who "won." It was an entertaining show during an otherwise ghastly summer TV season, it made people want to get up and dance, and it had enough of a "wink-wink" sensibility to be fun while taking itself somewhat seriously. I cracked up when I saw the trophy - it epitomized the show with its faux elegant writing on the Wal-mart disco ball.

And really, who among us mouse potatoes (besides the REAL dancers who post here and educate us wanna-bes - and thanks to you all!) could pull off any of those steps? Good on all of them!

You're not alone. I thought K&A's freestyle was quite a bit more complicated and enjoyable then J & C's. For that reason, I wasn't at all upset that they got 30 despite some obvious errors. Since J&C received three 9s from the judges, the only number they could give that showed the fact they felt K&A's was superior was a 10. It seemed like more of a placement score rather than the judges saying the routine was perfect. If they had been more on point with John and Charlotte's scores, which I thought deserved maybe a 7 or an 8, then it wouldn't have had to be a 10 for Kelly.



I agree with your theory because that was my first thought as well. It seemed that they were trying to have her mirror him, but it wasn't as polished as it could have been.

So who gets to take the trophy home...Kelly or Alec??

Well lordy me. An ABC soapie star wins your version, just as a Ch7 soapie star won the Oz first series (y'know, the chick who's now engaged to Lleyton Hewitt), and the 2nd Oz series was won by another Ch7 personality. However in both cases here they were clearly consistently the best.

But in your case, everything I've read points towards John being the best. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but.....

I think had John showed up in the speedo he would have gotten a 10!!

A standing ovation for you,TheDoc87! Thank you for that post.

Heck, go back to the very beginning of the program and you can see it in their faces. I remarked on it above, but I was attributing it to nerves or a sadness to be done dancing with Charlotte. Now I'm thinking that they knew K/A had won the viewer voting --- which in and of itself is suspect, since every other "poll" I've seen (MSNBC, USA Today, Dancescape) had J/C winning by an almost 2-to-1 margin.

I'm done with the show and with ABC. I only hope that they do ask John to host next time and he says "no, thanks."

Yeah. I'm bitter. I hate to be taken for a ride.

Total word.

I don't think it was fixed, but people like an underdog story and a fighter.

For every bobble of Kelly's there was one for John. His lift that he practiced with Swayze was messy and his footwork in the quickstep was a mess as well. Especially the part where they concentrated on his feet.

There are 14 million more people who watch this show than GH, so I don't think that was the entire reason for her win. Kelly just inspired more people to get off their butts and vote - for whatever reason that may be.

I saw only this show. I now regret not seeing the very fine Alec before tonight. Dayum!

If that trophy goes to the winner, what the heck does second place get!
Two trophys??

I think Kelly's first performance (the waltz) was really bad, and the criticism was well-deserved. She certainly did improve over the course of the series, but she didn't deserve to win it from a judge's perspective, IMHO. But I think that the judges saw her obvious viewer-popularity after the first two weeks, and gave up looking for the flaws in her dance technique, because they knew she was going to stick around due to the audience.

You know I am an underdog myself but I have to say I am SO sick of the underdog winning crap! THe only time I want an underdog to win is when they DESERVE to win it's a competition not the "Who can we feel more sorry for" competition!

I can tell you why the men voted for her...

Personally, I'm happy for Kelly and Alec. I've been a fan of Kelly's since her Port Charles days and I've been pleased with her progression on Dancing With the Stars. To me, she has improved so much and I thought that her and Alec's freestyle performance, while flawed, was still superior to John and Char's. John came off as way too stiff in that performance. At least K/A stepped out of their comfort zones and attempted something a little more complex, which I felt was more exciting and entertaining than the competition.

I loved J&C's freestyle for entertainment value, but I felt like K&A had more actual dance to their routine.

I think if ABC really wanted to rig this, a primetime star or a known personality would be better. A former Playmate from a genre show that's looked down upon by a good many people who class the soaps in with pro wrestling...that's so far outside the norm that I can't imagine someone could plan it.

Well, thank goodness, I thought that I must be a horrible judge of dancing when I thought I'd noticed Kelly's hesitations and missteps and then they got that tongue bath from the judges.

I thought his footwork was quite good and light. Yes, the lift was messy, but remember Kelly is lighter than Charlotte, John is older than Alec, and there was plenty of wiggle room in Alec & Kelly's lifts, too. In Kelly & Alec's dance, I saw about 10% dancing and the rest posturing and that includes the Samba. J&C had harder footwork in their original dance and I liked the fact that they made light of John's hip movements in the free dance.

Thank goodness he didn't actually come out in a Speedo!


Definitely, but they also took a lot of shortcuts with the sexy outfits and posing rather than actual dancing.

Good idea to E-mail messages of support and appreciation to John and Charlotte, which I will do.

Here's what I'm E-mailing ABC:

Dear ABC,

Although I registered on ABC.com to vote for dance couples, I will not participate in your forums to voice my opinion because you've constrained me during registration to have my member name be my E-mail address. I think such a constraint does not protect people posting on the forum from spamming or flaming by crazy forum readers who disagree with my viewpoints.

But that is not the point of my post. I am incredulous that the undulating, repetitive, writhing performances of Kelly and her partner were awarded higher scores over the fun-loving, imaginative, character-driven, and elegant performances of John and Charlotte.

What watching this show has taught me is that ABC panders to the desirable younger demographics and that the two male judges especially reward Kelly for her midriff-baring, strip-tease-like movements.

Trust me, I'm not a prude, and I'm not so naive that I don't realize that sex sells; it's just that ABC had an opportunity to sell something besides sex in this show and you lacked the imagination, guts, integrity, and commitment to do so. (For the record, I am neither a fundamentalist Christian nor a Republican.)

I'm truly saddened to recall John O'Hurley extolling the virtues of this show as TV that can be shared by multi-generations in one room, whereas this last episode clearly sent the message that Kelly's clichéd undulations win over style and class in the end.

I'm sure your hot-shot marketing team felt that the angle of Kelly as the hanging-in-there, most-improved, only-in-America-could-she-make-it -to-the-top trooper encapsulated the quintessential American story.

And I would agree if she ultimately were selling grace, elegance, and style instead of sex, or in addition to, sex. (Because John and Charlotte relating to each other on the dance floor and before and after the dances is sexy!)

All I can say is shame on ABC-----I will not patronize this program again.

You should also know that I've never before in my life contacted a network to express my satisfaction or dissatisfaction, but I am disgusted by the outcome of tonight's judging, which I strongly suspect was influenced by executives at ABC.

Alec had mentioned in his last Q&A that he didn't like some of the things they had to wear. From the looks of it, I think the Aquaman shirt was one. Good call on the sleeveless shirt. *yum*

I agree that Alec kind of choreographed the routine to look more like an actual freestyle routine, with the hestitations as the partner sees what they are supposed to be doing. Kelly's face in one of those times where she "hesitated" seemed to convey that.

I'll have to ask Alec that question when he does his next answer session on Kelly's site.

Thank you, TheDoc87, for expressing my thoughts. This show has been delightful summer entertainment.

I didn't recognize Charlotte when she appeared with the skimpy "dress" on and her hair down... yowza! She took 10 years off just by -- literally -- letting her hair down.

This is Swayze Crazy!

Why was Kelly considered the "underdog" with the "heart of a champion"? They all worked their asses off and improved each week. Why she gets rewarded for this escapes me. She did nothing beyond what everyone else was doing in terms of putting in the time and hard work.

Only in my opinion, she never got much better. Not enough to win, anyway.

I'm angry.

eta: Ms. Tessie -- great letter!

Delightful summer entertainment indeed! I am going to miss this program for the rest of the summer. I remember how people made fun of it in the beginning, and if they were to do it during the regular season and put up against something like CSI or American Idol it would never have done as well as it did. I for one, hope it's back next summer.

I'm glad I came here to get spoiled on the outcome. Now I won't bother watching. I can't stand to see that tart gloat and shake her tits tonight.

BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't even have to watch and I know it's wrong.

I don't in any way think that the entire competition, from beginning to end, was fixed. I do, however, think that Kelly's perfect final scores were so clearly not deserved that they appeared patently ludicrous. I mean, my brother has no interest in dancing of any sort, and less skill than even Evander, but he walked by the living room and stopped to watch (mesmerized by her abs) and was able to point out her more obvious fuckups. And the judges thought that was a performance worthy of a PERFECT score? Yeah, right.

It therefore suggests to me that the producers knew that she was the winner in the public voting (as I believe she has been probably every week, hence saving her ass in the early rounds) so they told the judges that it would look better if the judge's votes coincided with the public's vote, as opposed to having a tiebreaker situation. In the end, Kelly's final judges' scores were irrelevant because the points structure basically guaranteed that the public vote alone would decide the winner. Her fan base was clearly not GH only, but I do think the... enthusiasm, shall we say, of the GH fans might have been what tipped the scales in her favor. But I think it actually did her a disservice for the judges to have been so hyperbolic and overly generous with her final scores, because it casts a pall on her win that didn't need to be there. If they wanted to prevent a discrepancy between the judge's scores and the voting, they should've engineered a tie between the two couples so that the viewer vote alone would be the deciding factor. This overinflated score in order to make it seem unanimous instead just makes it look like the competition was rigged from day one.

I am a newbie to the show -- only watched the finale and the last five minutes when Rachel got voted off. Kelly's freestyle looked harder but it was definitely more sloppy. So does one go for the "more perfect" routine, or the one that was less perfect partially because it was more ambitious?

Why did they keep saying that Kelly was the underdog? In the Rachel-voted-off show (which wasn't that long ago), John was told he was in the bottom two. Unless he had a horrible judged performance, to me that meant that he was losing the popular vote at that time, which doesn't make him the favorite in a contest decided by fan voting. (All other things being equal, I would expect the younger, "hotter" contestant to get more votes in a contest like this -- the younger voter is going to be more likely to identify with the younger contestant and also have more time to vote.)

Does the show always have so much filler? There were four dances of about 90 seconds each and four short dances of about 30 seconds each by the previous contestants. That's about 8 minutes of dancing in an hour -- it makes American Idol look good.

In the beginning, Kelly got the lowest scores. They began with six contestants so it took up the whole hour for each of them to perform one dance, and as more got voted off, they went to two dances per night.

Word. I'm glad Kelly won. John has been too stiff and boring throughout this competition. Also, I don't think this was rigged. Even if Kelly didn't get the three 10's, she still would have won the fan vote so it would be futile to rig this competition.

I think what happened was this was a "throwaway" show - a cheap way to fill some summer airtime. All of the sudden it took off. When ABC took a look at how to get the best mileage out of it after the show had already started their options were limited.

Yes a former Playmate on a soap wouldn't have been their first choice but who would have been better? No one else had a show on ABC that they could cross-promote and who better to win than an attractive young woman they could promote to the key 18-35 demographic when they bring back Dancing with the Stars Part II. In addition they got to play the whole underdog thing.

Also does Kelly own any clothing that covers her from her chest to her cootchie? I get it - you have good abs - I don't need to see them every second you are on the screen.

Week 1 and 2: all six teams perform
Week 3: remaining 5 perform
Week 4: remaining 4 perform one dance, then the Vienese Waltz at the same time
Week 5: last 3 teams perform twice

Can someone repost the link to the site with all the dances again?

Did they get to pick out their own wardrobe for the show? Regardless, if I had a body like Kelly's, I would be wearing less than that. Girl has got it going on, and she said in an interview once that she has never had plastic surgery!

Dance Videos

I'm glad Kelly & Alec won. I liked their freestyle routine. It was risky and fun. Not perfectly executed, but better than John's & Charlotte's which was weird and uncharacteristic and definitely didn't play to their strength which is elegance. How many times did Charlotte straddle John again? Oh yeah, too many. Yeargh. Feel like I just walked in on my parents doin' it.

You know, I would have liked to have seen them each perform the dance they got the WORST scores for, instead of choosing their favorite. It would have been interesting to see how they improved.

Whoever wrote to ABC thanks so much! I will NOT be watching this show next year. I think had I written to ABC I would have gotten banned from the site forever! It's sad that this show had a great thing going BUT ruined it!

Hee.

I'm so happy for Kelly and so sad for John all at the same time. John mentioned on Extra tonight that he and Charlotte had been approached to do a Broadway show and things were in the works, so good for him. If Kelly had been knocked out of the competition, I would have thrown all my votes his way.

EXACTLY! This was a travesty. That routine was so.not.10 worthy. I couldn't believe it. It was like that time on AI when Simon raved over some performer then recanted his rave because he saw what you and I saw on TV, which was a mediocre performance at best.

The judges blew it completely on this one. I felt like they watched a whole different routine than I did and I even watched it again after knowing the scores. I counted five glaring errrors in the routine, and that! does not a 10 justify.

In reality, I wouldn't have been upset if she had won IF the judges had scored her more "honestly" (forget the underdog who fucking works hard crap, like everyone else is taking it easy--whatever). That type of win would have been ok with me because I could blame the viewer vote (and the dieties know, the viewers and I rarely see eye to eye). But now, I'm going to have to inch my way onto the grassy knoll and yell conspiracy. This has ruined this cool, fun show for me. So, thanks ABC.

OTOH, Alec is so so so hot and such a great mover. Wow, I'm going to miss him steaming up my TV.

She's only 29, so that's not saying much. She's still a glorified pole dancer that now wins a tainted title. She should be embarrassed.


ETA: I wrote ABC and John O'Hurley. Outraged! grrrrrrrr

I am happy for my girl Kelly. Her freestyle was fun and risky. I caught the mistakes but I just enjoyed her "all or nothing" approach to it.

John is the man and I would be happy to have him back on my tv screen full time!!!

Bah Trista!!!

Kudos to them! I'll gladly make the trip to see them live. (Though I must add a BWAH! to the person who mentioned the straddling. That is a "riding him like Seabiscuit" moment waiting to happen.)

Gracias cooternoonan for the link. :)

Well we all have our opinions. I stand by my Kelly support and happiness for her win, though I think John did amazingly this whole competition.

Or, she could be lying through her teeth. Just sayin'.

Reading this thread, I'm glad I didn't get addicted to this.

I was thinking all through Kelly and Alec's freestyle that they might get kudos for trying hard, but that their reach exceeded their grasp. Instead, my husband and I were baffled by the tounge bath that the judges gave them. No mention of the really obvious bobbles, hesitations, and out-of-sync moments? WTF? I didn't think they even should have been in the finals (Joey and Ashly were much more dynamic) and then to see them score perfect tens made no sense at all.

For what it's worth, my husband thinks Charlotte is gorgeous, especially without the ballroom makeup on.