Emily-D

The first all black couple was technically Emmett and Cheryl in season 3 was it not? And they won.

I don’t think Val is in anyway invested in this season, he seems far more invested in Jrs where he is a judge and probably earning a good wage. It’s no doubt very important to him financially that Jrs is a success. He knows he has no chance of winning this season so like his brother when he couldn’t be bothered, is just going through the motions. The show probably want him around as long as possible though, hence having them up as the bottom two in jeopardy.

Yeah I think he hates it as well. But the big five figure fee you get every week you stay on means he’ll stick with it. And he’ll be around until at least the quarter finals.

I’m not surprised at the ratings either. The show has made huge budget cuts due to the money thrown at American Idol. As a result they have casted virtual unknowns like Alexis Ren as a quick example (not to single her out), simply because they are cheap. Add that to the competition on Monday night like The Voice and TBBT and DWTS will struggle. Its not going to get any better either. The only way DWTS will survive past 30 seasons and into the next decade IMO is for the show to move nights, possibly to Friday where ratings are deemed irrelevant by the networks.

The right person went home and I know the scoreboard was a little lopsided... but for the entire bottom five to be women just says it all about the general voting public on this show. Standard DWTS.

Nyle was well known from ANTM so already had a built in fanbase. Not to mention he was of a good age and good physical shape to learn the dances along with two pros teaching him. Even Victoria was early 20s? Danelle is mid 40s with no fanbase at all. I agree she deserves huge respect and credit for going out and giving it a shot, but no matter how inspirational she is. If she’s only getting 6s with the odd 7 thrown in then she won’t have the fanbase to last long with this cast. So I also think she’ll go in that double elim next week. Nikki should go tonight barring a huge change in her performance and scores.

I noticed that as well. I bet she thought she would get someone like Val with all her dance experience.

Bruno trying to show blind Danelle what muscles to use was possibly the most Bruno thing of all time. I couldn’t stop laughing for about 5 minutes after that. Joe and Jenna are going to grate very fast when they’re still here outlasting better dancers in a few weeks time. Bobby Bones will also grate if he continues the way he did after his dance. Also something was a little off about Alexis but that may just be me. Enjoyed the premiere though in large, no real standouts. Tinashe, DeMarcus and Juan Pablo will all go far you’d imagine. Despite the 5 you could tell Evanna was a good dancer as well by the speed of her spins and movements, she’ll get much better scores in the future.

All three young girls have a good chunk of dance experience so will do very well in terms of scores but it depends on which of the three draws votes. The Bachelor guy will probably be like any other Bachelor guy. A rubbish dancer but a good guy who gets loads of votes and lasts weeks longer than they should. DeMarcus will probably do very well because he has Lindsay and she does well with anyone. The Disney kid with Witney has dance experience as well. They’ll be someone though on premiere night that comes from nowhere and surprises everyone and wins fans on the night. My money’s on Bobby Bones.

To be fair she could very well win viewers over with her charming Irish accent and she seems very sweet. You’d expect her to be able to dance well too. But in terms of voting bases, she’s going in with one of the smallest. She’s in no way a big get for the show. I wouldn’t worry about not knowing a first elimination. Just like every season, someone we may not expect will either meltdown or just outright suck on the opening night (or both). I’ve got my fingers crossed for it being Gleb’s partner!

Completely disagree. In fact I think she’d be the biggest contender for a shock elimination. She’s in no way one of the main Harry Potter characters. The films ended years ago and don’t appeal to the DWTS demographic so loads of people won’t know who she is. Plus she doesn’t have a pro with a big fanbase. She’ll be like an older version of Willow Shields.

Oh I fully agree, Artem is probably the only pro they could have realistically given her since Val just had Victoria. I forgot about Sasha (I always seem to forget about him) but you’d assume height could play a factor. It’s frustrating but understandable.

I was thinking about the paralympian earlier. If she’s blind then she won’t be able to see what her pro is doing in rehearsals in terms of practicing steps and movements. That means that Artem will have to physically move her body, point her feet properly, adjust her hands etc in order to teach her to do moves correctly as he can’t just show her the step and she copy what he does. I bet that’ll be a nightmare, especially when it comes to fast dances with loads of steps like Jive or Salsa. You can’t not feel a little sorry for the guy, when he has to deal with all that while Gleb can coast through teaching Tineshe a full routine to music in less than an hour. I’m no pro dancer, but if I was I’d probably rather teach someone deaf than blind. They may not be able to hear music, but it’ll take a hell of a lot less time to actually teach them a dance routine and they’ll have their buddy telling them everything I’m saying in sign language like Nyle did.

Don’t worry you aren’t alone with that opinion .

I don’t think Artem would have a problem with a “saucy partner” considering he got together with the person he won with in the UK virtually on live television. It’s impossible to judge how he’d do with a partner like that until he actually gets one. Gleb on the other hand has had partners like that (Jana, Erika) and it didn’t really end well.

I’d have given her to Brandon or Artem. Brandon having her as a new pro would give us a chance to conclusively judge early on whether he’s good enough to be a pro or not. Or Artem to finally see him be able to go all out with his partner knowing she can do anything he wants. I can understand them sticking Artem with the blind Paralympian with MS though, she’ll need someone very good to guide and choreograph for her or it would be a disaster. He’ll do well for her like Sharna, Peta, Derek all did for their “physically challenged” celebs. Giving her to someone like Gleb or Keo would just be unfair on her, Alan/Brandon are both probably too inexperienced to deal with someone like her and Val only had Victoria last year.

Mixed race female pop star (think a younger version of Mya). My niece loves her which is how I come to know her. She has a truck load of dance experience, will comfortably be the biggest ringer of the cast unless they announce anyone else.

Oh great so that’s us probably stuck with Gleb until the final then. I can already see myself losing interest in this season fairly early. Normally one or two people come from nowhere to catch my interest and support on premiere night (Rashad) so I’m hoping for something similar here.

Got no problem with older contestants, they normally come off far more likeable than the young ones. I suspect we’ll still get a female singer, probably someone young with loads of dance experience like a Normani type contestant. And knowing my luck Gleb will get her, which means I’ll have to put up with him for most of the season grrr! Yeah models have historically sucked on the show with the exception of Brooke Burke and Joanna Krupa, the common denominator of course being Derek. Bobby Bones will go very far if he can dance well. He’s massive in the country music scene, has a good relationship with ABC and probably has a lot of his fans watching DWTS. I can imagine a lot of big celebs showing him support on shownights.

I’d never heard of that Alexa, but one google search tells me that she has Alan written all over her as a partner. And if she’s single then don’t be surprised if they push a “showmance”between them as pointed out above.

Ah yes so before my time. Apologies.

I guess those two must have been before my time watching the show regularly as I have zero recollection of either.

Was J.R Martinez physically challenged though? Yes he had serious burn scars over his face and body but I wouldn’t say he was “physically challenged”. He was a former vet still in great shape, I wouldn’t class him as a properly physically challenged celeb. Bonner and Victoria also fall into that category as their pros didn’t really need to significantly alter how they taught and choreographed for them. IMO the only contestants we’ve had that genuinely fall into the “physically challenged” category are Amy, Noah and Nyle. A quick search tells me that this paralympian is blind and has MS so for me goes into the Amy, Noah and Nyle category. She’s in her mid 40s with no dance experience so I don’t see her being a good enough dancer to challenge the winning spots. But she’s a paralympian so she’ll have a work ethic which will help. Most importantly for her obviously is that she gets the right pro, surely they won’t entrust Keo or the newbie pro with someone like her would they? It could genuinely be a car crash on the floor.

They have to be likeable at the end of the day. The last two “challenged” celebs have been busts because they really weren’t likeable. Bonner was a jerk and Victoria was difficult to like for me mainly because Val wouldn’t let her get a word in edgeways.

I agree with you about the female pros. But at the same time the producers have to take some responsibility regarding the male pros. They only have themselves to blame for not creating more male winners to follow on from Derek, Mark etc. They’ve recruited poorly such as Gleb and Keo and for whatever reason have kept faith in them. Keo should have gone after Jodie Sweetin’s season and Gleb should have gone after Sasha Pieterse’s season. That’s two spots wasted. Sasha to be fair shows signs of promise, but hasn’t made the most of opportunities that came he way, he personally didn’t impress me with Simone Biles and that was really disappointing. Artem is just a bizarre one. He was hired off the back of a number of stellar seasons in the UK where he actuality won. But the producers continue to completely drop the ball by not giving him the chance to go “all out” with his partner the way he could with a couple of his UK partners and the way Witney could with Alfonso, Lindsay with Jordan, Derek with Nicole, Val with Laurie etc. They could have given him Laurie for example and that potentially could have turned him into the new “star male pro” that they desperately need. But they remained one dimensional and gave her to Val when he didn’t need it. Some of their decisions regarding male pros over the past few years has just been bizarre. It’ll probably happen again this season, Val will get the best female celeb, then they’ll no doubt waste the rest of the good females on Gleb, Keo and Sasha and the male pro cycle will go on.