I'm done with analyzing the last dances. It's sapping away the fun for me. I think the idea of a behind the scenes conspiracy is completely unfounded and ridiculous because there is no benefit for ABC doing so that I can see.

I'm going to go back to what I loved about the show - the cheesy fun and Alec's hotness. Let the ship continue to sail on.

Since we have discussed the FREESTYLE scoring a lot...

Nyree, or another John fan, I'm not sure if you are willing to do this, or if you have taped the show, but would you be willing to go thru the individual dance elements of John's and Kelly's freestyle and give it a technical review? And would a non-ballroom Kelly fan do the same? I think judging ballroom is very difficult, not to mention no opportunity for slo-mo and pause. I am really curious what we can come up with as an audience and how much we can divorce from the performance aspect, so anyone feel free to join in as well.

Then I will impose on our ballroom expert ziglettospal and ask if he/she could do the same (I think he/she is a John fan but I think he/she can be the expert unbiased judge of technical elements).

I am interested to see what we can come up with individually, we don't have a rule book for how to deduct or award points, so it will be up to your discretion, but you are still judging the technical elements of the dance only.

Give the time (starting time 0)
Type of dance element (specific or gross short description)
Degree of difficulty (1-10) -- how hard you think the elements were
Execution (1-10) -- how well they executed the elements, you can state your deductions if you like.

Example
3:10, Side-by-side (3 elements), 6, 6 - sync problem 1st element
3:20, Hip-shaking Fluff, 1, 10
3:30, Patner-dancing (cross-body lead to roll in), 5, 8 - bent knee
() <-- parenthesis stuff optional

Ooops sorry double post. I'll just add something here.



My comment on judging emotional expression pertained specifically to the skating category (7) we were discussing under performance scores. I think the DwtS judges were trying to score on gross technical performance -- again ballroom has no points-based scoring system for deductions and difficulty and execution, so their relative standards can be quite different from each other -- not to mention they are judging follower vs. leader elements.
esis stuff optional

The same could be said of John. Not everybody was a J/C fan and there are people who actually thought his freestyle wasn't good. Not everyone found J/C to be adorable and a lot of people thought that as well. It goes both ways. Some people didn't like Kelly. Some people didn't like John. Just cause the judges and ABC called him the one to beat didn't make it so as the audience said otherwise.

Oh jeeze, that's way too much work for this show! Come on now! And to tell you the truth, I was drinking martinis straight through the evening because I was having a DwtS Finale Party and was on my third one when the results were announced.

But the real truth is that once it was all over, I deleted all the episodes from my TiVo. My coach has instilled in me a "let it go and keep moving forward" work ethic when it comes to dancesport, and it seems to have spilled over into how I watched the show, too.

How about this: next time around I'll post technical reviews of each episode. Of course, I am neither a judge nor a coach so my information won't be the best possible, but at least I'll try to make it well-written and informative :-) Maybe I could be most helpful in taking what the show's judges say and talking specifically about how it relates to each performance, and commenting on where the judges were really giving someone a free ride and where they really were being too harsh and most of all where they really were just being odd.

Kelly won for better or for worse, and half of us will think one is worse and half will think the other is worse. Religion and politics, religion and politics, that's what I say....

My personal opinion? I still can't stand to watch Kelly dance. (But I'm not sitting here saying she didn't deserve to win or the show was rigged or anything else like that.) My big thing that I always look for is use of the legs and feet, particularly regarding stability over the foot and good ankle articulation. I found Kelly quite lacking in that department, but she did definitely improve over the course of the show. But that, along with her non-fluid arm styling and just bizzare (to me) floor presence that other people interpreted as "hot" just really made me not want to watch her. Other people, though, thought she was fabulous. At this point it's all just a big "WHATEVER, DUDES." I'd like to see the harshing on both Kelly and John stop. It's just pointless. John really isn't a graceless winner and Kelly really isn't completley undeserving. I think that the great conspiracy is that there is no conspiracy, and that ABC is probably delighted that the viewers are still rabidly talking about this a week later. This show is an amazing success for ABC!!!!! I mean look at us here on TWoP!

The bottom line is this is what you get when you let an untrained audience vote. Simple is that. And as has been pointed out several times here, the same kind of thing happens on American Idol.

That's a good philosophy! Honestly, I try to come in here so I can squee about the future of DwtS and the hot-blooded interaction, and see if I can derive any wind for my K/A ship, but I always end up getting lulled back into intense discussion.

DwtS has definitely become a cult show for me, this is the type of discussion I'd get into on a Star Wars board (e.g. who's the better Skywalker, Hayden or Mark), hee!

Let go djork. More importantly, stop procrastinating and do your work! [/self]

ETA Something fun for me: built your own FRANKENSTEIN celeb!

Rachel's arm, neck, leg extensions and toe point
John's carriage and upper body posture
Joey's footwork and agility
Kelly's hip action, back flexibility
Evander's heart, groove-thang
Trista's spins

Don't forget djork that Kelly and Alec are going to be on Regis and Kelly Monday! We haven't gotten confirmation that Alec is going to be there with her, but there is always ship fodder to be had.

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet (frankly, I'm surprised that you all are still talking about the last dance! Talk about controversy!) so I apologize if it has. But I was watching "Shall We Dance" (the American remake. It was...okay, to put it kindly) and I was watching the special features and there was a clip where Richard Gere and Lisa Ann Walter were learning how to waltz. And I'm pretty sure that the person teaching them was none other than Charlotte Jorgensen! It looked like her and it sounded like her so...I'm 90% sure it was her.

I'm a K/A fan but I loved watching Charlotte dance. Just...not with John. I mentally deleted him whenever I watched them dancing. It would be awesome to see her again next season.

Hey, today's Soap Opera Digest added to the list of hardships Kelly had to overcome. Apparently the day she looked like there had been a death in her family, she had just had oral surgery, there were 13 stitches in her mouth, and she simply could not smile. But she wasn't going to say anything about it then.

I voted for Kelly because I much preferred her dancing. John had some great moments technically, but he also made mistakes and his form wasn't always perfect, he tripped up, got steps wrong, almost fell down, but over all I loved his performances. I loved his hamming it up. The judges dinged him on that with the tango but I felt it perfectly suited the cheesy nature of the show and I interpreted that as John "getting it". I felt by far his tango was better than Rachel's. He sold each dance really well, he has fantastic stage presence, he owned each dance. I also think that Joey did much better than he was given credit for. They would have done a mean freestyle. Joey may have been "sloppy" but they executed a lot of complex steps to fast music.

I was uneasy in the last show when John said "I've got to win". I thought it was a little weird, I mean, after all, there is another competitor. There was the possibility he would not win so what then? But, I figured, what the hey, probably just came out wrong. Probably just meant that he really wanted to win and was working for it. When he talked about how disappointed he was not to win, I thought that was a bit much, but okay, whatever. What is not okay was his failure to give Kelly her due as winner. It was and is churlish.

John has not be at all gracious about Kelly's win, and yes, I expected him to be. During the show I became a huge fan of his and wanted him to be host for next season, but not anymore. If he were a kid, under 25 even, I would cut him some slack, but at 49, and as an actor, he should have learned how to behave by now. That would have included congratulating Kelly and recognizing her achievement and NOT excusing his loss by insinuating he didn't have a fanbase and that there was something wrong with the voting so it needed to be tweaked.

I am fed-up with the insinuations that there is something "wrong" with Kelly winning. That it has to be "popularity" or some sort of ABC conspiracy. That John didn't have enough "fans".

If ABC had instructed the judges to let Kelly win in advance, then they would have judged John more harshly. They certainly had plenty of opportunity to do so. Two nines and an eight in either one of his performances would have allowed them to give the win to Kelly without giving her tens. If it was set up, they wouldn't have placed themselves in the position of being forced to give her three tens in order for her to win.

There were complaints about the judging from day one, according to the boards the "wrong" people kept getting voted off, and yet, the ratings just kept going higher and higher. Even though I would like them to change some things about the show, I doubt that they will because producers don't mess with fantastic ratings.

The only thing I would change is not giving the judges any votes, like on AI. If the public wasn't interested in seeing so much of Rachel, she should have gone home. If the judges votes didn't count, Rachel would have been gone first, probably Trista next, then Evander, and John. Joey and Kelly would have been in the finals and Joey might well have won over all. I would have liked to see more of Trista and if anyone got cheated it was her. I believe the audience's preference should be the only measure. The viewers should get to decide who we want to see dance again, after all, the goal of the show is our entertainment.

Yipeeee! Seriously, I've been spurned 3 out of 3 with these damn morning shows -- I woke up just to watch GMA twice, then I thought Kelly would be on last Monday on Regis & Kelly. Sigh, it would be good to finally catch them.

Isn't GH's fan day this Saturday, with a rumoured appearance by Alec? Yeay!

ETA
Yeah, I kinda soured on that idea now too. Also partly because Tom won me over a lot in his LKL interview. I think John might be a little too talky and hammy, I don't know if he's able to scale back -- the focus would be on him instead of the contestants. That's what I like about Tom, he has no problem stepping back and letting the contestants take center stage.

I still want Rachel to replace Lisa though :) 'Cuz out of everyone, Rachel probably has the least career avenues. Though if I were an ad company I'd snatch her up -- Those LEGS! That flexibility! Stacy's mom has indeed got it going on.

Yes, it was. So that's another star (and a real big one at that) who she has taught to look like a decent Standard dancer in a very short amount of time.

Oh poor, dear Kelly...what a hardship.

Okay, I am just being a jerk. I was a Joey fan so I will just sit in the corner and sulk. But I will try to be a good sport when I sulk. :-) Really, I will.

Oh don't sulk Want2Sleep! Let's celebrate our Joey love!

I haven't squeed as much for Joey... But DANG! I lurve-lurve his Paso, it's fast becoming my no. 2 favorite performance -- and again that it such a credit to Joey and Ashly considering (1) it's set to Eye of the Tiger! (2) Alec was half-nekkid that same night!

Man, if they've gotten to do their full cha-cha again that would've rocked the house.

Maybe Joey should have tried that !!



That would have been great !


P.S. People magazine has a short article titled Samba-Gate. It asked 3 pro dance instructors to give their opinions on the DWTS controversy. I'll let you guess or read it to find out what they said. (I'm afraid, very afraid to tell you.)

Rejoice fellow Alec fans! Regis and Kelly did say on Friday's show that Kelly Monaco and "her partner" would be on Monday and would be dancing. Regis suggested that he and Kelly do a "dance-off" with Kelly and her partner, but Kelly pooh-poohed that idea saying, "Then, we might have to actually work."

So, what routine do you think we'll be seeing K/A do on Monday? Their samba?

Don't you dare do that now Want2...;) *LOL*

You now have people's interest peaked dontcha know? ;)

I'm afraid BestOne

Can't help it - natural curioustiy abounds! :)

Must have ripped some strips off individual hides or something - either that, or the criticisms must have been off the charts.

2 judges voted for John and 1 ,sort of ,voted for Kelly because she was most improved but didn't know how she got 10's.

Some highlights:

There is a picture of Kelly's back walkover and it says "those aren't actual dance steps"

They called Kelly's a flaw filled final routine

One said that John's quick step was excellent


There is more but please don't throw things at me, I didn't write the article

Kelly/Alec shippers this is for you! Photos of Kelly & Alec at the Playboy Mansion! Thanks to All Kelly Monaco Web for the info.

- I must say Edyta is looking quite purty in that 3rd pic as I whip out my Photoshop, hee-hee.

- Alec, why is your shirt tugged open above your pants? Has Kelly been naughty again?


EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Why is it not Monday yet!

That's ok Want2Sleep, I'm taking ziglettospal's advice, and just let all the negativity awash, can't let it ruin my enjoyment of this show! I might reconsider if it were the NY Times ;)

ETA
Yeah, that's too bad People just didn't have enough room in their mag to fit pictures of the first 25 seconds of John's freestyle under the same caption! ROTFL! [/snark]

The pro instructors that were used for the People magazine article were Francesco Flumiani, Gary McDonald and John Cassese. Any of you dancers have any idea who these people are?

[crochety old woman]And we used to call them poor losers, poor sports.[/crochety old woman] I've competed in plenty of athletics, and it was always ingrained in me to be a good sport, not to whine about the refs, or make big displays on the court when calls don't go our way. You know, "leave it on the floor," and whatnot.

I didn't get a huge "poor me" vibe, any more than any of the other tired, frustrated, stressed-out stars complaining about how tough rehearsing was. She was the one the judges were hardest on, so the angle the interviewers all took with her was on that point, and her response was always that she just worked harder and tried to prove them wrong. Which I think is a natural reaction to being criticized, and being in the bottom. Her "I've been an underdog all my life" comment wasn't made until after she had won. I don't know anything about her life currently, let alone her childhood, etc., so I'm not going to argue with her statement.
Again, I don't know what is terribly "dance-y" about standing around and walking around with your partner attached to your waist. I mean, what is that move called? And there's already been tons of discussion by much better people than myself about the moves Kelly did. The time John was killing/resting in the beginning of his freestyle dance was not dancing. Kelly and Alec didn't rest a minute in their routine. I'd rather a couple break up their dancing with attempted difficult moves than break it up with standing and doing a little pantomime for me.


Or "you" could realize that everyone's performances on this show were flawed, and that perhaps your own dances weren't exactly 100%, or 90% perfect. You could realize that it was a mistake to spend a portion of your final routine not really doing anything, and the rest of the time diverging from what you've been good at, and that it left the door open for another competitor to do better. You could realize that since you got all 9s, the judges had no choice but give the last competitor 10s. You could realize that you're not a professional ballroom dancer, but an actor, and you have a life to go on with, and this won't affect your career at all, except to bolster it by the exposure. You could be a gracious loser and just suck it up and smile and think of the good time you had with your partner who you're shopping a Broadway show around with. Just a thought, hehe.

I will still say the 9s for J/C were way too high (that routine was not better than or comparable to their prior routines), and that the 10s were accordingly justified as the judges had no way else to indicate they felt K/A's dance was superior. You know, Occam's Razor -- the simplest explanation is usually the right one.


Good point!

Glad that this thread is still going strong!

If this is going to be a scary Franken-celeb, I think it should have Trista's big, toothy, made for the cameras perma-grin plastered on its face.

hi annlaw78, just wanted to say super-duper-WORD to all the points you made above.

I also agree we need to keep this thought:

RUNNING!
Maybe by the end of today we'll hear reports from GH's fan day and get some good tail wind for our ship :)


LOL cooternoonan! Ok, I'll make a scary Franken-celeb:

Trista's toothy 'perma-grin'; Louis's rehearsal cap hair
Johh's ultra-hammy face; Char's Samba crazy-eyes
Rachel's scary eye make-up; Jon's surprised mouth expression
Kelly's tromping; Alec's Green Lantern costume
Evander's over-sized feet; Edyta's super-intense look
Joey's hip-hop shoulders; Ashly's Can-of-WhoopAss

US magazine (stop laughing at me) has brief article titled "John O'Hurley' s Sad Defeat." The only part of the article I found interesting was it said although John faced off against Kelly in the finale he thought Rachel "was a better hoofer" and then said "Sadly, the voting became too much about popularity and not dancing" and then added "She (Rachel) would have kicked my butt."


Whatever John........

OK...Here's MY Franken-Dancer! ;) *LOL*

John's stage presence & carriage
(This one from fiancee...;)) Charlotte's body
Edyta's boundless energy
Evander's heart
Rachel's body lines
Jonathan's spins
Joey's showmanship
Ashly's leadership
Louis' sense of flair
Trista's smile
Kelly's spirit
Alecs' looks

How's that...it's the CelebDancer v. 2.0!

Kelly's Samba dress is up for bid on Ebay

The costume designer is the one selling the costume, not Kelly. I think that was part of the deal for providing costumes for the show.

I'll be keeping a lookout for FanClub weekend updates and I'll pass on what I can get. Her main FC event isn't until tonight at 6:30 PM Pacific Time.

That might explain why he's a has-been. Attitude matters, and he doesn't seem to have a very good one. There is a reason why some people are more popular than others. Frankly, I think the contest would have been a better one if Joey had been in the finals with Kelly. The judges noted vast improvement in Joey's cha cha, and I think freestyle would have played to Ashly and Joey's strengths.

Although Joey did complain about some of the judges less constructive comments (accurately IMO), he was a good loser in that the night he lost he congratulated Kelly and John, which makes him a winner in my book.

Maybe Joey could replace Lisa as the backstage host? Lisa just can't think on her feet, and Joey can.

I don't care for Rachel. She is stunningly beautiful but I didn't like her attitude either, especially after reading her comments as a judge on "Hot or Not".

Back when I first heard about DwtS I was hoping that they'd get Gary McDonald to either dance, host or judge. Gary is a fairly recent World Professional 10-Dance Champion with his wife, Diana. That means they were tops in a competition run over all the Latin and Standard dances. He judges dancesport comps in the US, coaches high-level couples, played Jennifer Lopez's mean ex-partner in Shall We Dance, was a top competitor in the Pro Latin division, and hosted several dancesport programs that were shown on TV in 1999-2000.

Francesco Flumiani was once the object of a free-floating crush on my part. Like Alec makes you all squee, catching sight of Francesco in his tail suit made me weak in the knees. Anyway, he's a high-level Professional Standard dancer and briefly partnered with Charlotte Jorgenson a few years ago. I don't know what his Latin background is.

I've never heard of John Cassese from the dancesport circuit, but a Google search reveals that he teaches in Santa Monica. He's got a ton of choreographic and show dance experience, and he's trained with some ballroom and latin greats, so I'm sure he has a good idea of what he is looking at.

I'm willing to bet that the opinions in the "People" article will be split. Just like here.

It was obvious you were going to say this - put down John, as other John haters would do. Where would Kelly be if she did not have GH, I guess no where with a career. If she leaves GH which is in a year the DWTS buzz would have died down, I doubt she get a stable job. John on the Other hand has gotten an offer to Broadway which is more of an honor than a silly soap. His career is vitalized, more fans, and the ones who hate him on this board won't matter because its just a tiny blimp on the radar. More people like him that don't have internet access. Only to you is John coming off bad because DWTS is the one that created a dark cloud over Kelly's win not John. He did not make the final suspicious it was the judges and the producers. John is being honest, and usually words written in print sound different then the way they are expressed.

Well I loved John O'Hurley. He was my favorite, but I did see mistakes with his final routine, just as I saw with them in Kelly's final. I didn't think John deserved all 9s, so wasn't too terribly upset with the undeserved 10s Kelly got, because it seemed to me, as it evidently has to others, that the judges had boxed themselves into a corner by having only one score to give Kelly if they felt that her routine was better than John's. As they evidently did and I did as well. Kelly and Alec had more difficult things in their routine, they did flub some badly, but John flubbed as well, but his routine was safer. And more important to me as an admitted dance amateur, I liked Kelly/Alec's routine bettter. And it's for a cheesy dance contest where the prize is a 10th grade shop class meets Boogie Nights Disco Ball of Shame, so what I liked better is my only criteria.

But after seeing John on Larry King Live, reading what he's said in print, I'm not impressed with his attitude at all and I'm glad now that he lost, as I think he's being a sore loser and I'm not really fond of sore losers. I wasn't a John hater before all of this controversy, but I'm a John disliker now. He's gone from being my favorite to my being glad he lost and that's all due to his attitude. And that's all on him, not anyone else.

What did he do that was so bad, he did not act bitter, if you are turned off because of him wanting to change the voting, well I agree with him because it became a popularity contest and it ended up the worst dancer won. The judges scores should have been worth more than the audience vote anyway. I like to see the ratings for the next DWTS because I wonder if it will bomb, because of the suspicious scoring.


Don't believe everything you read because things are taken out of context, or rumors that are false are put in print. Use alot of salt, Give the guy a break because he has not dissed Kelly in any way.

Poor John. Boo hoo. Sadly, the thing is he didn't realize until too late that the voting was ALWAYS about popularity. People vote because they like a pair/dancer and want him/her/them to stay on the show. The audience isn't sitting out here with little professional dance books figuring out each celebrity dancers marks for technical merit. We vote on what we like. In case Mr. O'H doesn't know it, like = popularity. A couple could do the most technically perfect dance out there, but if the audience doesn't like it - for whatever reason - they're not moved to vote for that pair. Since the audience vote is, and always was, where the power lay, the thing was always, always, always about popularity within the context of a dance show. It wasn't the freaking Olympic games, and JOH isn't someone who trained his lifetime for this. He needs to get over himself and take some lessons on interpersonal grace.

Slam the show, not the poster, BlueTickMaggie.



I think it's quite obvious from this thread that infosaturated *not* the only person that thinks John is coming off badly in the aftermath of DWTS.

Kelly would have a job regardless if she wasn't on GH. General Hospital was in a bidding war with four other soaps to get her so obviously the girl has talent. She alos has a contract with ABC instead of GH I think so they could cast her on any of their primetime shows. Kelly has also gotten offers for a talk show and other projects so John isn't the only one to get offers from DWTS.

Kelly also has fans outside the internet that voted for her otherwise she wouldn't have won this contest. She must have had more than John cause he didn't win. The people that hate her on this board are just a blimp like John's.

To me, the sad thing is I bet Kelly is now wishing she hadn't won. Which is a shame, I think, because she's really done nothing except work hard and perform as best she could, just like the other competitors. Unless conspiracy theorists think she was in on the plan to "rig" the show. I don't know whether John is actually saying what he is being quoted as saying, but I hope not.

On Kelly's fansite, there is some to-do over John and Joey being on Donnie Deutsch, but no Kelly. I wonder if that's because she wasn't invited, or she declined b/c she was busy, or if she declined b/c she's sick of having to defend her win/hear John go on about "fixing" the broken show that resulted in her win.

I'm sure she didn't expect two weeks after the show ended for mags and tabs and tv shows to still be selling the "John was robbed!" story. But it doesn't seem to be slowing down.

It's especially unfortunate, as Kelly said she liked that there was no money prize involved, so it would just be for fun, and not become all greedy and vicious. The media is becoming more and more mean-spirited about this by the day.


Of all the stars, I thought Joey was the best with holding his own with his partner, in that he was not overpowered or overshadowed by Ashly. He was expressive, energetic, confident, and drew attention to himself (in a good way). Alec and Charlotte were clearly the "stars" of their partnerships, IMO, and I don't mean that in any way to cut John or Kelly -- just an observation. I think Joey had a lot of confidence and comfort with performing on stage in front of an audience and playing to a crowd. He did a really good job, and I was sorry to see him voted off. Like I said -- of the final three couples, I would have been happy had any of them won.

I'm looking forward to Regis and Kelly. Since they followed the show, they should have some fun/interesting questions. I'm hoping Kelly R. will help us out and ask the juicy questions. Or at least tease K/A a bit. Anything but "do you think your fanbase gave you an unfair advantage?"


Ditto to kittybidee's post. I would say that it was always a popularity contest, per the rules that said the audience vote was supreme. And I began watching b/c of the well-ingrained NKTOB brainwashing every girl of my generation was subjected to during her formative years, and was totally cheering on Joey.* That had nothing to do with dance. The show is about hooking people in by offering a variety of celebrities, one of which may appeal to them. And then watching them dance and reacting to it. All voting is about popularity. Otherwise, just go by expert judges' scores and not have the "power of the people" aspect.

*And then I discovered the wonder that is Alec (I'm such a dork)!

Make room my friend. We can sulk while listening to Step By Step and show the judges his segment in the Wildest Dreams special.

I didn't get to see Larry King, but I'm surprised that the finale and the scores have become that big of a deal especially to John (though I do agree with Joey that the criticism he was getting was unfair.) It's not like he was trying to win a recording contract, or a million bucks or to live like a Hilton. It was for a chitzy trophy and proving to the country that you're pretty good on your feet. I won't say he's a sore loser because to the eyes of some, he was robbed. But dude, LET. IT. GO.

Quick FYI:

If you like Latin dancing and live in the New York area, there is an off-broadway "dancical" performed yearly, usually in the late fall. It's called "Latin Madness" and it chronicles the history of latin (but mainly caribbean) music and dance, and they also include a few comedy bits. I've seen it a couple of times and have found it to be pretty good.

Here is the link:

Latin Madness

Topic? Can't wait for the next DWTS!

The personal sniping back and forth stops now. Seriously, NOW.

In my opinion he has dissed her indirectly through his inferences that there is something wrong with the results of the show. Trista and Rachel, even Joey, would have been able to make a better argument but they didn't.

In my opinion John should have nipped any suggestion that something was wrong in the bud and praised Kelly, no matter what his personal feelings were on the matter. There is zero evidence of any foul-play. Instead he is doing the opposite. I wasn't a "John Hater" at all. I was all for him becoming the host. I was thinking if he got a primetime show I would definitely watch it. I don't "hate" him now, I don't even know the man. If he is in a primetime show I won't boycott it or anything. I just don't like his attitude. It isn't just what he is saying, it is what he isn't saying.

He could have made a joke of it. He could have said, after seeing the trophy "It's a good thing I didn't win, my wife would never have let it in the house." By not doing so, he is taking a cheesy silly innocent fun family show and treating it like a serious contest who's integrity is threatened unless the "right" person wins. In suggesting that the voting system needs to be changed for it to be a good show he is implying that the results would have been different. It is an insult to Kelly because he is implying that she shouldn't have won, and that is rude to say the least.

It was rude of me to refer to him as a has-been, and he isn't one, so I apologize for that. However, I still think his attitude has hurt him. Producers tend not to hire actors that think they can run the show better than they can, and say so publically rather than privately.

I think most of what I think about this show has been said in one way or another (whether politely or not) somewhere on the 163 pages of this thread. I'm coming from complete ignorance in the field of ballroom dance, I'll admit it first. So my opinion may count for little. I also haven't been watching the interviews or anything that came in the aftermath of the finale. Still, this isn't a professional forum so I feel I can add something to the argument/discussion at hand.

I preferred J/C's style of dance to K/A's. That being said, at the finale I wanted J/C to win the thing (because I felt they deserved it), but watching Kelly's massive improvement over the course of the series, decided that it wouldn't be a bad thing if K/A won instead. However, I disagree with the way it was handled. K/A did not have a straight 10s performance. J/C didn't either, but they weren't given 10s. I did not see that K/A did moves that were a lot more difficult, but even so, they messed up. I thought K/A's routine was jerky and not the smooth transition from move to move that I had come to expect. In contrast, J/C also messed up, but they presented a much better performance. I was actually hoping for a tie. I thought it would be the coolest thing in the series if J/C and K/A had received the same scores in the end. I wasn't angry that K/A won, only slightly disappointed. If John O'Hurley has indeed been ungracious in his remarks following, that would certainly lessen my opinion of him, but I hope that my reading of his character throughout the show has been accurate and the reports not so much.

Even with my own opinion, in the end, this was a simple, enjoyable show; much better than most reality shows where the intent is to humiliate the competition. I hope DWTS makes it. If "reality" is here to stay, then this is more what it should be like.

Thanks Ziglettospal for the info about the dance pro's in the People mag article. I thought it was a bit strange when they described John Cassese's career highlights as having taught Goldie Hawn and Pamela Andersen,,,,what the heck?




Exactly!!!!!!

Wow!

I just watched the International Dancesport World Championships...

Wow!

Now I see what the pros were **trying** to teach the Stars. I'm impressed with how much was taught, but even more by what there is to learn. Wow!!!!

I learned a lot from watching them too, especially how good the line of Charlotte's neck was (which really didn't mean anything to me before). It also impressed upon me how totally inadequate the square footage of the dance floor was in the studio. How could any of the DWtS couples possibly do an adequate job with the quick step when they would have been out the door and down the street by the time they worked up one good run of steps?

I would have been fine with a Joey, John or Kelly win even though Kelly was my personal favorite. I do think that there was a style issue involved that came down to personal preference.

That's what I thought too when I first saw it, but it was part of the choreography. Alec would gesture for her to wait, then show her a step. The camera angles made it difficult for us to notice it. I found it interesting that both Charlotte and Alec choreographed it as a "teacher and student" theme.

Carrie stated that a "10" doesn't mean perfect. Aside from that, because they scored John so high, they had no choice but to give Kelly nines to acknowledge that her freestyle was better than John's. While in this show they are giving points which turn into ranks, in regular ballroom there is no point system. It goes straight to ranking. That is, dancers are put in order from best to worst which they call ordinals. I think in the judges mind's that is what they were doing, a bastardized form of ordinals.

That comes down to personal preference I think. I liked both performances, but some people hated John's (thought it was awkward and poorly executed) and others hated Kelly's (for the same reason).

Me too, but the judges didn't know in advance what each other's scores were. Each marked independently of the others so they didn't know what the total would be in advance. As it is, Kelly and John came within one point of each other on 60.

I don't know if they are all accurate, but I saw the Larry King Live interview and the transcript is on line.

John did say he didn't have the fanbase that Kelly did, which infers that is why she won instead of him. While it is possible that is true, Seinfeld was a primetime show and is still showing multiple times a day in repeats. It is almost a cult classic for a significant portion of the demographics of the viewers. There is no way we can know how many fans each one had going into the show. It is almost a guarantee that Evander had the most fans. IMO it is childish of him to undermine her win by insinuating that had it been based on dancing he would have won. As she also scored highest with the judges it is clear that she was genuine competition.

Nearing the end of the LKL show he said that they needed to tweak the voting for it to be a great show again. While on the show, he kept saying what a wonderful show it was with no suggestion that he had any problem with the voting. He loses, and now all of a sudden the voting needs to be changed. Why? Again, he is insinuating that there is something wrong with the results.

So, he has not directly denigrated Kelly's dancing, but he has promoted the idea that she won based on "popularity" which was due to her original fanbase, and that the voting needs to be "tweaked". He has not complimented her as a worthy opponent publically. Maybe that is too much to ask, but to me it would be the gracious thing to do. Given his age I would expect him to know how to act like a gentleman and be good-hearted about it all, not act as though something must wrong with the show because he didn't win.

See, the judges could have avoided this whole controversy by announcing after Kelly's performance that they couldn't give her a 10 because she had mistakes, but since they thought it was better than John's freestyle overall, they were going to retract their score for John and instead give him all 8's, so that they can give Kelly not-perfect-but-still-better 9's.

Damn them to hell for their lack of foresight and subjecting the American public to imperfect-10's![/end tabloid snark]

Or maybe... the judges did want to change their initial scores but that evil Disney empire, ABC, told them they had no time for such rubbish because they needed all the time to have the synth drumroll cycle 10x! And they already spent the bucks for the silver confetti so they needed to max the footage of it raining down and burrying the contestants.

That's my conspiracy theory.

ETA Am I the only one that hated that stupid drumroll? It sounded like it was salvaged from Who Wants to be A Millionare.

Given the ratings of the show, I'm curious if ABC debated adding a second six-week summer run with a new set of stars and dance pros. After the first two weeks, ABC knew it had a summer hit on its hands. I'm sure there were a number of logistical issues...the availability of the sound stage at Studio City, Bergeron's availability, etc. But it would have been fun to have another six weeks over the summer with a new set of participants.

Way surprised to stop back in and see this thread still running...

Count me as one who was quite upset on the evening of the final, but who did indeed get over it in about 24 hours.

True, but John appears as J. Peterman in maybe about 20 of those episodes (IMDB lists him in 21). He wasn't the star of the show, he didn't even appear in the first several seasons, altogether, his appearances don't add up to a full season on the show. Meanwhile, according to her fans, Kelly appears on GH every single weekday, that's more than 250 times a year. While the viewers for GH might be only 3 million a day, I imagine that many of those viewers don't watch it every day since the stories move at such a glacial pace and everything that happens is rehashed a dozen times anyway, so those 3 million are not the same people every day but vary. At least, back when I watched GH, I didn't tune in more than twice a week, so to keep insisting that a total of 3 million tops watches GH is probably not accurate, the total audience is probably at least double that. Therefore, John might well have a point that his fanbase isn't as large as Kelly's, but he did know that going in, so that's the way the cookie crumbles. For that matter, I would think that Evander Holyfield had more name recognition than any other 'star', so his fanbase should've been biggest of all. Of course, he mostly deserved the criticism he got from the judges, which Kelly maybe didn't deserve what she got initially, so perhaps that's the difference; viewers were more likely to vote for Kelly feeling she was being unduly criticized in the judging. Maybe the 'plucky underdog steals the show' plotline was in place from the very start.