I agree with the previous poster who pointed out how much fun (as well as the suxy, of course) Kelly and Alec seem to have with each other. I noticed in rewatching the original finals, when Kelly would get through a hard part during a dance, Alec couldn't help breaking the performance "look" and smiling. I think they really had fun together. And though I cannot read Charlotte's mind, if I were her, I would have gotten sick of the Peterman schtick after Week 2, of dancing with a partner constantly looking past me to find the camera and mug for it. She's constantly doing her "adoring look up at my partner" thing, and having to remind him to reciprocate. Not cool!

I don't understand the change in call-in time for the Dance Off. Just talking about numbers, the spread of calls made over an hour period of time with people jamming calls in would be pretty close (as evidenced by the 2,000 vote difference). It's not enough time to allow a wide gulf in votes that would be stastically significant.

But, whatever. Kelly won last time, John won this time. Their lives will go on. I personally think John would have gotten more mileage out of being the "wronged" party. Maybe everyone (the media, the critics) will be thrilled now that he won. But to me, the sight of a silver-haired, middle-aged man being a sore loser, whining about how he was robbed, and then smugly smirking in a rematch victory... just is rather off-putting. Especially whe Kelly looked so deflated!

A note about the dancing, I still don't understand why Charlotte and John insist upon doing freestyles that are supposed to be "hip" and "modern" and fast, b/c they end up just looking horribly unhip and awkward attempting to be sexy, to blah adult-contemporary music, and in bad costumes. Why not just dance a medley of quickstep, waltz, and foxtrot, or some other combo of standard dances? And count me among those who really don't care about the story-telling and characters of J/C's dances. Especially as John takes that as liberty to overact while dancing. I'd rather they just, you know, dance together as themselves, and not have to interject more artifice and hamminess.

Well, color me surprised.

Color me thrilled--John WON!! :)

He deserved to win the first time around (perfect 10s for that mistake-ridden freestyle that Kelly and Alec did in the finale? Give me a break!), and finally got the recognition that he deserved for showing that it's all about the technique and the artistry, not the "suxy."

Give me classic, textbook, solid basic ballroom dancing over flashy, less well executed moves any day. John's Waltz was right up there with his Quickstep in terms of showing what true ballroom dancing is--and the degree of difficulty in his Jive inspired freestyles (both of them) proves that he can bring it with the best of them--and Charlotte is the best of them, hands down. As for his alleged bitterness, the only bitterness I saw was from his numerous detractors, who were just determined not to give the man even an ounce of credit for anything that he accomplished during the competition or afterwards. John was right; neither he nor Kelly deserved 30s for their routines in the finale, but he did deserve it for his Waltz. And his remarks about his name being "You should have won?" That was because those were the first words out of the mouth of anyone who met him, not because that's what he really thought about himself.

GO, JOHN--and tell your detractors to suck it up, just like they kept telling you to!

See you in DWTS 2! :)

Gah. What a stupid waste of time. Thanks a lot for ruining a perfectly cheesy and fun show for me, ABC! I no longer will be investing as much in the next season, if at all. The excitement I felt in the first season is just gone. Even at the beginning, I just couldn't make myself feel any anticipation as to who would win this dance-off. I feel used. And dirty. Bah!

I felt for Kelly when John was announced the winner. She looked so drained and defeated. To have her win be tarnished by this stupidity must have been quite a blow to her. And to think she was so excited last summer, jumping up and down how she had never won anything before.

At least, I won't have to tape Oprah tomorrow. As much as I like Charlotte and her awesome dancing (I covet her hair! It was dancing and swaying so prettily during her dance with Nick), JOH is just so dead to me. His mugging and preening for the camera, coupled with the smugness and whining... It's just way too much.



Big, fat WORD. Hee. Thank you, barkley, for pointing out what I felt was lacking in Alec and Edyta's dance.

I saw a clip of Kelly and Alec on yesterday's Extra. Alec was looking sweetly down at her and talking about how much he enjoyed dancing with Kelly and that last Tuesday would probably be the last time they would dance together. When he said that, Kelly broke down and went somewhere to compose herself. She just can't bear to lose the suxy! *sigh* I hope this is not goodbye to The Suxy! just yet. Can we have Alec on GH or have them come out with a DVD with the rehearsals/bloopers during DwtS or something? I'm going to miss them!

I am not taking sides here but I need to respond to all of you that mention the faces John makes while dancing. Have you ever heard Ellen Degeneres use the phrase "put on your dance face?" As soon as she said that on her show I knew exactly what she meant and I bet all of you do also.

I was at a wedding this past weekend and during the dance I was watching for peoples "dance face". You know the biting your lip sexy face, the close your eyes and snap your fingers face, the run your hand through your hair I'm hot face. And I can't even explain the faces made to the song "Pretty Woman". Every drunk woman on the dance floor thought that song was about them and boy were there some interesting facial movements.

Anyway, I cut John some slack on mugging and faces since a lot of people have "dance faces".

ETA: gentlemen, you aren't exempt from this either, women actually name things you do on the dance floor, not a good thing!

I really didn't care for either one of them. I thought Rachel Hunter should have won and she was voted out on the 2nd or 3rd episode! She was the best dancer in the bunch. Kelly Monaco did, however, do a valiant job and I think it sucks for the championship to be given to "Peterman", who did nothing more than stand up straight (ballroom posture), mug for the camera and let his partner shine! Kelly's performances were MUCH more difficult - she was the one being spun, tossed and thrown around. Peterman just had to stand there and look good, which is easy for him. And, the judges just loved all that he did, mainly because he's a tall, 50 year old guy who has good "posture"! Kelly actually had to DANCE.

I think, if he had ANY class at all, he would have turned down the "rematch" and told the media that Kelly won fair and square. But, the networks wanted to milk this for all it was worth and, hey, he can use the work! All he's really done since Seinfeld is some stupid commercial for insurance! Maybe now NBC will give him a "Peterman" show!! LOL

I'm in the minority for sure, but I can't stand Kelly, and I think John was better both on the original show and in this ridiculous "dance-off".

I saw Kelly everywhere the last few months - every talk show, etc., - and I saw John nowhere, so I don't know where this outcry about John seeking publicity is coming from. I agree with whoever said that she flaunts her sexuality. Absolutely she does. She was really snotty on some of the interviews I saw, so I don't fault John for saying this was important to him, etc. He was no worse than she was, not by a long shot.

I'm glad John won. He should have been the winner originally. I don't know what Kelly was doing, but it sure wasn't dancing. Without Alec, she would be nothing. It's all him. She definitely lucked out getting a great partner who really knows what he's doing. Her little bitchface bugs me every freakin' time I see it. And I don't see this whole "falling in love" thing. I think they got along and struck up somewhat of a friendship, but I never saw any sparks. She gazed at him every now and then, but I never got the feeling he was attracted to her. Unpopular opinion, I know.

Having said that, I think the dance-off was the dumbest thing ever. It has tarnished the whole DWTS thing for me, and I won't watch the next time around with the same sense of fun, and that's if I watch it at all. As much as I thought John was more deserving of the win originally, I wish they would have just left it alone. This had a slimey feel to it, like it had taken a horrible yucky turn. I think they ruined something that could have been really wonderful, and was, but just briefly. I wanted John to win, and he did. But.........yuck. IMO, the dance-off was a big mistake.

Kelly couldn't have been "spun, tossed, or thrown around" if she hadn't had a male partner to LEAD her through those maneuvers--and as a male who has taught ballroom dancing, I can tell you (as Bruno himself pointed out, and Bruno is not that much of a John O'Hurley fan) that leading is infinitely harder than following--it is not just "standing there and looking good," because the man must actually use his entire upper body to actively lead the woman through her part of the dance, especially in the Standard dances; she can't follow what he doesn't properly lead.

Therefore who actually had the more difficult part, and who actually danced? JOHN.

I can't believe I'm even weighing in on something so trivial, but that was pure, unadulterated bullshit.

I used to be mildly amused by O'Hurley, but his whining and incessant mugging have removed any positive feeling. I once thought the hamminess was an act, but it's clear it's who he is.

A D-list celebrity grasping for any shred of a career (a career based on pomposity).

He'll get a big kick out of his big victory with all his rich golfing buddies.

I'm no Monaco fan (other than the fact that I'm a red-blooded male and she's an amazing looking woman), but she won the original "competition" based on the rules of the game. That ABC cooked up this "rematch" is a shame.

I watched the original because I had it on tape (preset the VCR for "Lost") and it was the summer, so there wasn't much to watch. This "showdown" made sure I won't watch Season 2. I'm glad I'll never have to see Len or Bruno again. I'll never have to see Lisa Canning stumble her way thru another segment, nor will I have to endure Bergeron's lame attempts at humor.

But I may miss Fook Yu... red-blooded male and all.

My hope is that if ABC decides to do this again, Artem and/or Snow will be partners for the celebrities.

LegalEagle44 , I SO agree with you. It's much harder to lead, so John had a tougher job right from the start. Kelly runs and jumps, and lets Alec do almost all of the work. If she looked good, it was Alec who made her look good. Personally, I saw a lot of awkwardness and stumbles. He taught her a lot - There's no question that she improved greatly from the beginning and I did enjoy some of their routines. But Alec carried her not only literally, but figuratively too. Personally I would like to see him get more recognition from this. He's much more deserving. With a different partner, I doubt she would have made it as far as she did.

But I'm basically disenchanted with the whole thing and John's victory tonight was not as sweet as I thought it would be. It all seems so sordid now and although I love to watch dancers, I'm totally turned off by this show. What once was sweet and entertaining and fun turned into a show with dark undertones and no satisfaction at all.

*Yuck*

I hate that the smug, smarmy, and vile John O'Hurley won this 'dance off'.

Kelly, you are the true champ. That is all.

Adding my "yuck" as well. As a series, DWTS just crashed and burned. What a mistake. Yuck in general and a specific yuck for Lisa Canning who desperately needs to be replaced. The "stars" looked totally stressed out, and I felt that the audience in general was crapped on by TPTB.

I did not get to vote, because voting online (and I think by phone) was closed by the time the show aired where I live. I wanted to see the performances first and vote based primarily on that. Guess that teaches me a lesson! [Did think the win would come down to internet voting if people called both phone lines consistently the whole time lines were open.]

The fans' response clip was funny-strange, because except for the first woman who named her dog after JOH all the JOH supporters were much older than the KM supporters. It was also insulting that the vocal KM supporters were skeevy boys. I'm sure that's not the case for both JOH and KM fans from this show, and it was such a weirdly cobbled together piece.

I thought maybe Alec dialed back the heat when he danced with Edyta to maintain the suxy image/backstory he has built with KM. He seems like a smart guy that way.

If they did this Dance-Off as practice for the results show next season then they need to do some serious rethinking. It was boring, and I would not bother to watch it. I did really enjoy the four exhibition dances done by the professionals.


DWTS Dance-Off = Iron Chef Rematch [Morimoto/Flay]
John O'Hurley = Bobby Flay

Feh.

Just like Kelly's detractors did when John and his rabid supporters did in the media when they whined their way into a mulligan.

I think the worst thing was when the "professionals" in the media went after Kelly with venom they usually reserve for Republicans.

Well said, DebbieM. If there's one thing both Kelly and John fans can agree on, it's that the Dance-Off sucked in every way possible. I'm going to try really hard to put all the nastiness of this controversy behind me and approach the new season of DWtS with a positive attitude, but it won't be easy.

As much as John and the press bitched about the DWtS "voting template," I seriously hated the results show and the way the voting was handled this time. First of all, I don't want to devote two nights a week to DWtS, especially not when the second night is just going to be 29 minutes of boring filler and there are better scripted shows to watch. I want to see one hour a week of new dances/fresh material and leave it at that. Secondly, voting shouldn't start until the show ENDS on the East Coast. Allowing people to start voting 10 minutes into the show encourages them to vote for their "fave" without watching all of the dances which is wrong. And fans should be given a couple of hours to vote. I hated that panicky feeling of, "Ohmigod, I only have 15 minutes left and I keep getting a busy signal!!!!!!" Watching a reality/variety show should not be that stressful. I also think it's a shame that so many people couldn't get their votes through this last time (according to posts on this board, both John and Kelly fans had trouble, especially with their cell phones.) Everyone's voice should be heard in competitions of this kind. So, again, they need to lengthen the voting time and give everyone a chance to make their preference known.

Really? I didn't see this at all. When they announced JOH as the winner, Alec clapped for them, while Kelly stood there. Then she rattled off her rehearsed speech of the charity being the realy winners, blah blah.

All I can say is "friggin' Lisa Canning." My God, is she horrible. You could tell that Peterman could barely tolerate her. Either could her co-host!! And the way she ac--cen--tu--ates each syllable of each word by poking forward her hand that 's holding the cue cards. Horrible job. They better lose her for next season or I won't watch, she's that horrible.

The minute Peterman won the TV turned off and I walked away. Big Friggin' deal. I did the same thing when Carrrie Underwood won AI. Its like "Well, there's a 2 month peice of my life that I'll never get back...."

The best revenge is that the pictures and clips used to announce that he "won" the "dance-off" are the ones of O'Fatty as the blue spandex overstuffed sausage. LOL

For example: CNN

Kelly was clapping. I thought she wasn't at first, but then they panned out, and you could see she was clapping, but her hands were low, at her waist, and weren't visible in the tight shot.

legaleagle44, John O'Hurley is hardly the second coming of Fred Astaire. That's in spite of his latest freestyle, where he seemed to think he and Charlotte were channelling Fred and Ginger. He's a good beginner who thinks he's a great dancer. IMO, a lot of credit goes to Charlotte, who is acknowledged as one of the best teachers out there. (Confession: I'm a big Charlotte fan, and I'm glad she wasn't hanging on to JOH in the dance-off like she was during the series.)

And can anyone tell me how to rid myself of the picture of JOH in that spandex freestyle getup? His appearance was never an issue for me before, but that is one huge gut. Ugggh! The horror, the horror.



You could be right, noriko. Nice samba, but I was expecting Alec and Edyta, who says her dancing is "animalistic, like a panther" (something like that, anyway), to set off the sprinklers. Instead, it was like watching a brother and sister dance. Maybe Alec decided to handle the two-women situation as gracefully as he could. ;)

I'm not totally turned off by DWTS. Gloomy, stressed dance-offs, yes, but the original series was fun. Just -- all those people who wanted JOH to replace Tom Bergeron as host, please, that's a bad idea. The guy is a major turn-off now.

Getting back to the pros, I imagine the producers/ABC thought Trista would go far, since they cast her with Louis van Amstel and she had a bit of dance experience. Same thing for JOH and Charlotte as well as Rachel Hunter, given her ballet training and Jonathan Roberts' experience in dancing with amateurs. Alec, Edyta and Ashly didn't have the same track record, so were given the less likely contestants. I imagine Edyta ended up with Evander because she's tall and sturdily-built (for a dancer, I mean), and Ashly/Joey was too cute to resist.

All the other DWTS series let the pros speak. I think the US producers might have nixed the pros so the audience wouldn't notice that two-thirds of them had accents. I'm betting we'll see a lot of new "unaccented" American pros come in for the second series.

Which I will cheerfully watch as long as JOH isn't hosting. Lisa Canning should go, of course; she was so badly dressed she didn't even qualify as eye candy.

Thank you! John was moving his feet and dancing. Kelly was shaking her stuff but the feet were clumsy. She knows how to draw attention away from the feet. JMO of course.

Excuse Me!!

Did y'all not see the head to head dancing that opened the show last night? Jeeze. Kelly and Alec totally danced the spandex off that flat-footed can-barely-pick-up-his-feet fatass!!!! That segment proved in plain sight for all to see that Kelly was by far the better dancer. John could barely shuffle and was wayyyy slower. I felt sorry for Charlotte during that poor performance, especially when he tanked the lift.

John was on GMA; Kelly's interview on GMA never aired. John and Kelly were both on Larry King. John was on some CNBC/MSNBC show without Kelly. They've both been on The View and Regis and Kelly, I think. I think the only show Kelly has done that John hasn't was Leno. Then there are the smaller shows like Access Hollywood and Extra and Good Day Live that I really can't keep track of!

I would say that they got equal coverage after the first show's finale. I didn't catch much of the PR tour before the Dance-Off, so I can't speak to who's done what. I don't think it's entirely inappropriate for the winner of a given show to receive more press attention than the non-winners, however.

I think a lot of the John criticism comes from the rather unsporting comments he made in the week or two following the original show. My opinion of him dimmed after Larry King, when he basically hogged the entire show with his hammy routine, overspoke other contestants (including the winners, Alec and Kelly), answered questions directed to other people, interrupted, etc., as though it was All! About! Him! And then, with Kelly and Alec right there, he proceeded to pontificate about "built-in fanbases," how the voting needs to be tweaked, that the show was a good template for a great show, but it needs to be fixed in order to be perfect... as if to say b/c he didn't win, the show and its process of voting is invalid. Look -- it was from the beginning a show based upon popular vote, not about technical merit. I don't see the point in discrediting Kelly's win based upon that system simply b/c John is sad that he didn't win the popular vote on that particular night. I mean, deal with it dude, you're pushing 50 -- it's a life lesson I should have hoped he would have learnt earlier.

Had John just come out and said the usual, classy comments about how he's happy to have been a part of the show, enjoyed learning to dance with his great partner, and is happy for Kelly for her win, I would have thought a lot better of him. Everyone has had to suck it up and accept something they don't like in life (esp. athletes), and it's a shame he couldn't do so for something so trivial. I was just surprised by how someone whose whole dancing persona on the show was "old-fashioned, classy elegance" was acting like a petulant 8-year-old, and making snide, sarcastic, unneccesarily sniping comments at Kelly.

I thought the whole dance-off was a bad idea. It sucked that Kelly basically lost her title. I wasn't a big supporter of her, but I did think she won fair and square, thanks to her fans. She wasn't the best dancer, but she did win. PERIOD. I was pissed for her last night. Now, with that said, when Alec & Edyta danced, that was HOT. Sorry, Kelly's suxy doesn't come close to those two.

So, the prevailing opinion seems to be that Kelly was robbed, JOH was a smug, poor winner with a bad charity, and that Alec and Edyta weren't as sexy as Alec and Kelly. I think I must have been watching some other DWTS, because I didn't see any of that. Maybe my Tivo caught BizarroDWTS instead.

I think the Dance Off was one of the worst ideas in recent network TV history. I like Kelly and I think she had some of the best individual dance performances in the original series. I also didn't think she was nearly as bad in the beginning as the judges made her out to be. For instance, I'd take her grim, stiff waltz from ep. 1 over Trista's smarmy, "oh, I'm not going to finish my turns properly because I'm too busy beaming at my public" (you want to talk mugging?) attempt. I love Latin, because it's always so hot and exciting. However, I think that if she'd danced the way she did on Tuesday during the regular season, she never would have won the judges' vote. Her moves were messy and in my opinion, the chemistry with Alec was missing a certain spark. I also got tired of the "Kelly Monaco dances the songs from Moulin Rouge" thing pretty quickly. I'm glad they switched it up for the freestyle. I feel bad for her that there was a dance-off and she didn't win it, but I imagine knowing that she raised $125K for hurricane relief (and personally earned 8 times that amount for herself) is probably a comfort.

John's rumba was about as good as Kelly's quickstep. His waltz, however, was far superior to her cha cha cha. I thought neither freestyle was exceptional, but I give John the edge because he tried things we hadn't seen him do before. When they announced the winner, I saw a man who was full to bursting with emotion, but somehow managed to not freak out like he'd just won a car on Wheel of Fortune, and turn all gloat-y. He was excited and pleased, but he didn't succumb to the leading question, "Do you feel vindicated?" I thought he did very well by Kelly in that moment. And I say that as a person who has lost a lot of respect for John over some of the continued whining in the press, and cringed during a lot of the interviews on Tuesday. We get that you're disappointed and you expected to win. It happens to competitors in all sports. Move on. On the other hand, since it's a dancing competition, not an interview contest, I think John won on Tuesday and I'm glad that the votes bore that out. And if I don't get to see John and Kelly dancing together, I'm glad that we at least got that little lift and spin that they did. It was very nicely done by both of them.

And for the final thing that I disagree about, I think that Alec dancing with Edyta was so much sexier than Alec dancing with Kelly. I finally got to see him dancing with a partner who is well-matched with him, in terms of both skills and physicality. I always prefer to watch couples who are closer in height dancing together. Edyta is a slithering tigress and their samba looked so smooth and hot. I love Alec and Kelly together because they always seem like flirty friends to me. But sometimes it seems like they're trying too hard. Alec and Edyta, however, looked completely effortless and exciting.

I don't agree that Kelly lost her title. Idiot Tom Bergeron stressed that Kelly won DwtS and was still the champion but Peterman won the Dance off.

I'm still trying to understand how Peterman won the viewer vote. From all the indications in the summer, Kelly was far ahead of everyone else, even in the beginning when she was pretty bad. Her fanbase was supposedly a lot larger. Maybe it's because of the 15 minute voting period. Kind of ridiculous that it was such a short time - why so short? So they wouldn't have to pay more money for each vote? They could have just reduced the amount of money paid per vote.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was engineered to make sure Peterman won, to try and shut people up. Unfortunately for Peterman, it seems to have backfired. He looks even more ungracious and smug than he did before.

Actually, I remember Kelly saying on the View that she was donating her entire salary from the Dance Off to Hurricane Relief Fund. So she raised quite a bit. Honestly, I admire her for that more than anything else.

I have a different view - since Kelly had been coming up on top in the popular vote, I figured that ABC would have engineered the dance-off to her advantage. After all, it was going to be 100% audience votes this time. I figured that Kelly winning again would reaffirm her first win and show that ABC was "right" the first time. Well, whatever. I think the idea of this being a competition in the first place was kind of silly - it would have been fun to see some of the early castoffs, like Evander, improve over the weeks rather than throw in a humiliation factor.

As someone who works in fundraising, I've got to echo what was said a couple of pages back - I don't care if it's Harley riders, golfers, Nobel Peace Prize winners, or junior high kids having a bake sale, charity is charity no matter who's on the giving end. And it's very appreciated. There are people with disposable income who are more inclined to give/participate if there's a fun event involved, such as a golf tournament, a silent auction, a concert, etc. So, kudos to both of them for being involved in charitable causes.

The voting actually started after J&C's first dance (around 9:10-9:15 EST) and ended at 10:15pm PST, so that's a pretty decent size window--at least for us back east.

I tried to vote and got through to Kelly's line twice. Other times I either got busy signals, messages saying this number is no longer in service, and once a message that said I'd reached my five vote limit. Since I was hitting the "send" button on my cell phone to retrieve the number and then again to redial, I know I was calling the right number. I guess I could make a stink and complain to ABC for shits and giggles but then I'd be like the people I've been laughing at all summer.

I agree with the posters that said the dance off was a bad idea (with the exception of money being donated to charities). The dancers didn't seem to have half the energy they had during the original series and I didn't love any of the dances; although the Waltz was lovely and Kelly seemed to be having a ball during the Quickstep.

If the "head-to-head" dance that opened last night's result show had opened the dance off, would the results have been the same? IMO one couples dance looked better than the other. Maybe next year they can have the couples do the same types of dance at least once each episode so we can better assess who performed better.

In a perfect world, Joey would have been in the finals instead of Kelly and THEN it would have been good. Didn't understand how Kelly won that time.

That said, I almost forgot about the dance off and I wasn't even home for the finale. And as I much I was rooting for John the first time, this time I just couldn't care enough for either team. And it's gotten ridiculous that Kelly had to "prove herself" to people with this. I'm calling shenanigans on the entire thing.

And BTW, Lisa Canning? I got some robot company on line one, they want you to come home.

Are they calling because she's obviously malfunctioning and in need of repairs? Because, damn, girlfriend, was a mess during the Dance-Off. She was stumbling over words, asking questions, then cutting off the answers, blathering on about stuff that didn't matter, and basically, just sucking. I'm sure that Lisa is a nice person, but this is not the job for her. We need a recast. Does anyone have any ideas?

My tape cut off the end of the Dance-Off, so I missed what Bergeron had to say about Season 2. Did he mention a start date for the next series? Inquiring minds want to know.

In Dancing w/The Stars Round I, I think that in terms of actual dance and style, JO'H won, hands down. Kelly had a couple of splashy routines as the competition wore on, but for the most part, she wasn't actually dancing, so the fact that she and Alex won REALLY bugged. And yeah, I do think that to a small degree, ABC probably had a hand in her winning.

That said - the JO'H bitterness, snideness, etc. at losing really turned me off. I don't care how upset he may have been by the results, he should have at least tried to be a gracious loser. You know, "no one likes to lose, but at least I lost to the best," yada yada yada. This was a freakin' dance contest, for Christ sake, not the end of the world. His childish I'll-hold-my-breath-until-I-die-foot-stomping 'tude has not served him well. And let's face it - in the scheme of things, let me repeat - this was just a freakin' dance contest.

The end result of all of this is that he (the better dancer) comes off looking like an absolute jerk and Kelly comes off like a real lady (albiet a barely dressed one).

So as far as I'm concerned:

Kelly 2, John 0

John O'Hurley: I'm glad he finally won but it would have been better if it had been earlier in the summer. To those who are denigrating his charity, that is very petty of you. His charity supports cancer research which is still very necessary, last time I checked. Who cares if it is Golfers Against Cancer as opposed to the Bush-Clinton Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief Fund? Is cancer research not needed anymore?

Kelly Monaco: I felt really bad for her when John's name was announced. While I have never cared for her dancing, she did win the competition fairly. She basically had her win invalidated by the Dance-Off.

The Professionals: Charlotte and Nick were just so fluid and effortless on the dance floor, it was amazing. Alec and Edyta were really hot together. I noticed him break into smiles occasionally. I'm sure it was a relief for both Charlotte and Alec to dance with people of equal skill finally.

Lisa Canning: Finally, another good dress. Those deep V-necks seem to flatter her. The dress last night and the dress from the finale had identical necklines.

He said something like "We'll be back in January." I'm wondering if that means all of them will be back. I'm wondering if Lisa Canning is going to get Dunkelmanned.

Aw, pwetty wittle pwincess Kelly looked so sad when she lost. Which made me laugh and laugh and laugh. I never voted over the summer and regretted it greatly after her "win." Thankfully I got to rectify the error this time around. Yeah, John was horrendously obnoxious, but this was a dance contest, not a personality contest, something I suspected a lot of the voters forgot the first time around. He's not going to win Mr. Congeniality (but then Kelly wasn't earning any points with me with her smugness over her "win" all summer), but the right dancer won, and Kelly can take her trashiness back to her soap opera and the men's magazines where someone of her "talent" belongs.

Word. It did somehow remind me of Survivors "Lets Give Rupert The Money" viewer voter contest.

Thanks, blackwing.

Ratings news from Zap2It:

jenelope, word to your entire post. Well said.



I agree with this as well. Personality-wise, I think John was extremely spiteful, but in terms of actual ballroom skill, I thought he was tops last season and the same in this dance-off.



mtlchickie, I think Joey took the exact same liberties Alec/Kelly took with choreography and were double-penalized for it. He was making great strides and had better rhythm than Kelly, IMO.

AB-SO-LUTE-LY!!! Bergeron looked like he wanted to throttle her everytime she opened her dumb yap. I know *I* did.

Perhaps she was a little upset that after winning something SHE EARNED, it was effectively taken away from her by a spiteful has-been and rabid JOH fans? I know I wouldn't have been doing cartwheels and backflips for JOH, especially after he's been whining all summer about how he was the best dancer, it was fixed, blah, blah, blah...

And let's not forget that JOH basically rubbed Kelly's nose in his win last night, even though he didn't come out and say it. All about how the win means so much, and that he's been vindicated. Which I'm sure couldn't have made Kelly feel very good.

To me, Kelly stood there, a bit stoic, but she still was a hell of a lot more gracious than JOH's been. And for that, she's a winner in my eyes.

I would kill for her body also, barkley, but I think maybe you and I mean it in different ways :)

Completely forgot to tune into the results show! Maybe that demonstrates how much I really cared about this dance-off. Tuesday's show was far from thrilling. I arrived home at 9:00 pm last night and rushed to put on The Apprentice to see the "two 10's" that The Donald alluded to on Howard Stern this morning. The moment these contestants started running around the golf course like idiots, the TV was switched off for the evening for my Nip/Tuck Season 2 DVD. Never gave a thought to what else I might be missing.

Topic: I'm disappointed to hear JOH won, and I feel bad for Kelly, but this thing was a disaster the moment it was announced. The only thing I really regret is that I missed the pro dances last night. For me, those were the best segments on Tuesday's episode. Maybe I'll get lucky and Raphael Pungin will put all the dance-off clips on his blog including the pro segments.

I was a bit surprised that all ABC gave away was a total of $250,000 dollars. They charge more than that for one commercial spot during Desperate Housewives. It was a lot of money to give to charity but they should have donated so much more because ABC can afford it.

I totally agree, jlco123 -- it seemed a rather paltry amount considering the revenues the Dance Off was bringing in for ABC, and the general boost in ratings that DWTS provided ABC, which in turn raises the network's overall cache with advertisers.

So, good for Kelly for donating her $1m appearance fee to the relief efforts.

Well, I guess John realized that I needed to downsize my list of Enthralling TV Guys because he very generously managed to completely eradicate all traces of his previous charm during the DWtS Danceoff.

I voted for John purely for nostalgic reasons but I think Kelly, even though, IMO, a lot less impressive than she had been during the first finale, was overall the winner. Certainly in the PR sense. And that was probably the more far-reaching type of victory to be had here. I think that ABC realized that and helped it along for Kelly to a certain degree by editing John to look bad. But I don't think John deserves any slack for it. He should have had some protective guidelines in place going into it but instead came off looking totally clueless and jerklike. (IMO)

Another thing I noted was how even more tarted-up the show made both Kelly and Charlotte this time around. I thought of them when I happened to come across a review by Jennifer Egan of the book Female Chauvinist Pigs. (Ariel Levy). Some lines from it seemed very apt.

"Levy has a theory that makes sense of all this. Our popular culture, she argues, has embraced a model of female sexuality that comes straight from pornography and strip clubs, in which the woman's job is to excite and titillate -- to perform for men. According to Levy, women have bought into this by...confusing sexual power with power, so that embracing this caricaturish form of sexuality becomes, in their minds, a perverse kind of feminism."

I don't know. Maybe this Levy person had gotten a preview of Kelly's and the usually elegant Charlotte's freestyle stylins. Was that intended to be a dance-off or a Ho-down?

It actually wasn't either one of those. It was a popularity contest. Comprised of many things(looks, personality,dance abilty,performance ability,suxy-ness,elegance). But in no was was this strictly a dance contest. If it was, it never would have been opened up to the general public to put in our two cents. The majority of viewers don't even know what exactly they're looking for in some of these dances, so there's no way the average viewer could judge the dances correctly.

I call bullshit. O'Hurley somehow wrests the "title" from Monaco after she won six weeks ago? And only giving us 15 minutes after the show to vote? The only way to rectify this, sadly, is the very thing that will kill this show and ruin the reputation of Peterman, the Playmate, and everyone else involved: A second Dance-Off. Who's with me?

On a side note: Did anyone else see Pat Monaghan of the rock group Train in the audience?

Though I realize the phones were open probably 20 minutes into the Dance-Off, I still think it would have been better to open the lines after the show, leave them open for 2 hours, as opposed to closing them down 15 minutes after the show. It just makes life easier, and you're not having to fuss with voting while the show is still on -- you can just watch, enjoy, then deal with all the busy signals and whatnot.

I don't quite understand the reason why they changed the voting. I think it is in-line with how the British version votes, but the British version doesn't have a separate results show, so I don't see the need to have voting during the show. I wonder if this was an attempt to lessen the number of votes, if ABC had pledged to donate $x per vote. But that's just me being cynical.

The whole dance off was a dumb idea but I am glad money got raised for Charity. One clairification, though, I don't think Kelly donated her paycheck for doing the dance off to charity. I believe each vote each contestent received counted as a small donation to the charity of the contestant's choice. Kelly's was Katrina relief. John's was a cancer charity. These donations were on top of the contestant's paychecks.

Well, since Kelly and Alec won first place among the judges in the original contest, the only way JOH could have won it would have been to win the audience vote, since that would supposedly trump the judges' vote. He didn't, which means K & A won both. So what in the world was his basis for all his sour grapes? Oh yeah, his deluded ego.



OMG, this cracked me up! LOL.



I totally agree. I know people say that it's more difficult for the man because he leads, but I don't think it holds true at this level of competition. I'm sorry. I just will NEVER believe that what JOH had a higher level of difficulty than the complexity and skill Kelly displayed. Maybe at the professional level, I could buy that arguement, but not here. For that matter, I thought Joey's routines were more difficult than JOH's.



Thanks for sharing about the Larry King show, since I missed the spectacle.



That's what I was thinking. I was never able to get through for Kelly. Oh well. I guess we'll never know. Too bad the whole series has been badly tarnished over this.



Apparently any class he seemed to have during the original series was just part of his act.



I wondered the same thing.

I swear I saw Loni Anderson in the audience during the results show on Thursday, in addition to having been in the dance off audience on Tuesday. You don't suppose she was doing research for January ... ?