Flick

Ah, yes... The infamous "Country/Folk" OD. That theme was a trainwreck and there were some things put together that ranged from just not very good to being in very poor taste. What saved this from being the latter was that D/W dedicated themselves to learning about the culture and bringing in a Bollywood specialist to make sure they were doing it right. Unlike say the Australian Aboriginal inspired dance.

I'd tune in for the absolute drama and chaos that Manny Ramirez would bring. I have a serious love/hate relationship with the guy but I'd watch just to see if he takes off to pee in the middle of a dance.

From the paparazzi photos I've seen, she does. Which makes sense because they're her feet. Also, prosthetics aren't cheap.

Many of them literally refer to Sharna as "Our Lord and Savior Sharna" because she's gushed about Meryl and Charlie's partnership from day one, so she's probably okay. And yeah, she knows about that. Someone tweeted her a bunch of screenshots from tumblr the other day. Coincidentally it was the same day someone sent Mama White a bunch of Merlie/Marlie shipper vids. I think it was also the three month anniversary of their OGM, too.

US Weekly actually tweeted a few things that made it seem like it was a lot longer than what was aired. It was a modified version of Scheherazade with some of their Samson and Delilah lifts in it, so it's not like something all together foreign to her.

I think she absolutely does. It's a slightly different animal on ice because they do have to go even more exaggerated and hit then reset, but she absolutely does. I see people say this a lot and every time I think of Notre Dame de Paris from 2013 Worlds and just don't get it. The emoting she does on the show is completely different than anything she and Charlie would ever do on ice, but that's because it doesn't fit their style and because V/M has a corner on the romantic angst market.

And it sums up how I feel about Derek and thus about Amy. It's a statement that can easily be applied to whichever couple chaps your ass.

Then perhaps explode isn't the right word, but I'd like them to win for the sole purpose of the number of broken records on the topic. If I found Derek even remotely likable then I'd have the same feeling about Amy winning but I don't so I won't. And there's been quite a bit of bitching and moaning about Maks and Meryl, even here, so yeah, I'd say there'll be some reactions.

I loved Maks and Meryl's freestyle, but please tell me I wasn't the only one waiting for Jeremy Abbott to run out in the middle of it. That basically sums up all my thoughts from last night because at this point I'm pulling for a Maks and Meryl win more to watch people explode when it happens than because I actually want them to win. Though I do actually want them to win.

I've been involved in fandoms for long enough to tell you that just because you assume something is coming from somewhere doesn't mean it is. I've seen nastiness towards Amy coming from the fans of just about every couple that's been on the show and I've seen the same sort of thing towards Meryl from fans of just about everyone including Charlie. If you were actually giving anyone the benefit of the doubt, you wouldn't have tried to assign blame to any particular fandom and instead regarded them as an individual asshole which is what they are regardless of who they support.

There's definitely been a personal backlash in relation to Amy. I haven't loved her dances and I haven't warmed to her as a person, but I'm content to say that or she's been lackluster for me and leave it at that. But even here there's been comments about Amy as a person or her time on a show that have crossed a line. Just last week people referred to her disability as her "issues" in quotations as if being a double amputee was something she was exaggerating. On the People article about Mark's injury there were several comments calling her something along the lines of a no legged freak. Yes, in the corner of the Internet I tend to stay in most people's frustrations have been directed at her performances, but even there it hasn't been completely free of comments that at best are in questionable taste but more appropriately would be classified as cruel.

I think where Henry has been around through the process it might be easier to sub him in than someone who has presumably never met Candace. I also recall that the troupe/eliminated pros typically learn the choreography in case this situation comes up. I'm not sure if they've still been doing that but it seems logical. There was someone on another forum remarking that the troupe is officially useless based on the wording of the article stating another pro was rehearsing, but I believe that they likely refer to both the troupe and the teaching pros as pros because... Well, because they're pros regardless.

As much as I loved the pieces in The Wire, I think the one from Bustle was my favorite.

That's a pity. And I can't find a way to express that without sounding sarcastic but I'm sincere about that. I initially liked Mark, went through a long stage of being annoyed by him, and have come to enjoy him again this season because he's been really great with Candace. It's a potentially serious injury and I'd think that even if he did manage to perform, that lift would probably be a no go. Regardless of whether Candace is slated to be eliminated or not, I think I'd prefer to see someone step in for him. There are of course a number of pros who could step in physically, though I wonder how many of them would be able to provide the emotional support for Candace. It's one thing to develop that relationship over the course of the season, but to get tossed into that situation at the last minute when Candace is guaranteed to already be a wreck is going to take a pretty even keeled person. For instance, someone of Maks' temperament (much as I enjoy him) wouldn't be an advisable choice. I'm not suggesting he'd be an option, I know he's not, I'm just saying that as far as personalities go someone like him probably wouldn't be the best choice. Maybe someone like Henry? He struck me as very patient, very kind, and very present in what we saw of him and Diana.

Representation matters. It matters a lot. I guess my issue is that I feel like there's been a singular focus and that people deserve to be represented complexly because they are complex. For me, it's like in the drive for representation, focus was lost on the fact that Amy is more than simply her prosthetics. I'm not blaming Amy for the way the show has portrayed her because there's absolutely no way for her to avoid that edit, she can't just say she won't talk about her disability like Meryl does because no matter what she does it's right there in front of everyone. And I'm not comparing their disabilities in the slightest because as someone with similar depth perception issues and no night vision I know that that really doesn't compare to Amy's situation, so it's not about that. But because of the way the show has focused on that at nearly every opportunity, I've had very little reason or opportunity to connect with Amy. Aside from the moment I mentioned before, my reaction to Amy has basically been awe and respect but I've never wanted to root for her as a person. I haven't really wanted to root against her until last week and that's more in response to being 200% done with the OTT reactions and praise that Derek gets than anything Amy herself has done. There just generally hasn't seemed to be a spark there of any sort and whether it's due to compartmentalization or edits or if she just isn't an exuberant person, it doesn't really matter to me because what I know is that I'm not connecting and I don't really care why. On this show I need either a personality I can root for or the ability to suck me into a performance and Amy simply leaves me cold.

We've seen Candace's family, we've seen her struggles with overcoming her nerves, we've seen a lot of her as a person beyond her religion. We saw James' visit with his megafan which made him endearing, we saw a little bromance between him and Charlie in the packages for the group and when they bring up their tweets on the show. We've seen Meryl goofing around and imitating Maks or giving him the same attitude back, more importantly we've seen her embody a character in every dance and even if Amy has supposedly embodied the movements of a dance I don't feel like she's ever emodied a character. Those are all things that have very to do with their defined character (James' fan may've been because he was in a boyband, but the visit was more about how he spent time with her) of a Christian, a boyband member, and a figure skater. We haven't seen a lot from Amy that has defined her beyond being a double amputee. It's a disservice to Amy and it's a similar issue that Charlie had in that he was nothing but the affable figure skater. We learned nothing about him and I don't think we've really learned anything about Amy.

I can quote and edit it to just what I want to quote, both from a desktop and on the mobile site. I'm guessing it's more of an issue of people not realizing they can do that or not caring that they can do that. You can like someone's routine and think they did a nice job while acknowledging the errors made. Candace completely lost it in the middle of the dance and had to be walked through it by Mark. I can see that, still enjoy the number and give them both credit for managing to hold it together for the remainder of the dance.

Brought over from Maks' thread: My issue is that I'm not necessarily here to see the feel good win and I don't actually see her winning as fully fulfilling that. Yes, I recognize that plays a part in it, but I'd rather see someone I feel consistently performed entertaining routines win. In another season, I'd be okay with an Amy win. This season, I'm just not. While Meryl winning is my ideal because for me she has performed high quality routines and I find her very endearing, I'd also be okay with a Candace win because even with her struggles of overthinking when it comes to performance night I can see how much this means to her and how much joy she finds in it, which I find engaging. With Amy, I don't get that sense of joy and don't find her particularly likable. I'm not going to complain about her crying in packages or claim that she's playing for the pity vote because I don't feel that way. Truthfully, I found her tears of frustration regarding her limitations to be appropriate and one if the few moments where it felt like I was actually seeing Amy as a person. It was a candid moment of frustration that I could identify with because while I've never been in her situation, I'm a person that when feeling intensely overwhelmed cries or slams things. But since then, I feel like I've learned nothing about Amy. I know about how her being a double amputee has impacted the process and how they've had to work around that, but Amy isn't defined by her prosthetics and I feel like because it's such a big part of how her rehearsals need to be conducted the show has allowed that to be the case. That lack of connection to Amy as a person and her having a partner who has grated my nerves in the past for the praise he gets for dancing circles around his partner has made me really opposed to the idea of her winning. Maybe if one of those factors were removed, things would be different. I have no doubt that the choreography is mostly a necessity and that it'd probably be largely the same with another partner because while Mark did give her more content and motion than Derek did in the early weeks it wasn't as much as people act like it is. But like with Maks' history coloring how everything he does is viewed, the same goes for Derek. And the combination of Amy's packages, Derek's history, and the lack of performance or even tangible joy from her has made her a generally lackluster competitor for me.

Letting them have their fun means that people would have to give up a topic where they can prove how much smarter than they are than those silly little people who are happy to suspend disbelief for a few hours a week.

The thing is that shippers will pop up from nowhere. There are people I follow on tumblr who ship characters on shows who have never had a scene together or aren't even on the same show. People have terrific imaginations and are very capable of spinning things how they want them. That goes both for the people who ship it and the people who think that Maks needs to be burned at the stake for ever having had a showmance. Personally, I don't think we've really seen much outside of their dances that lends any weight to the argument that they're playing the showmance and I don't think you can count the dances on their own. If we were counting the dances as any sort of indicator of reality, then you'd also have to argue that Candace and Charlie tried to sell a showmance. People have turned Maks' comments about wanting to marry her and asking if she was married when they first met into this big red flag that he was planning on working a showmance when to me it came across pretty clearly as something he was instructed to ask because the American public wants to know and more importantly a joke. Aside from that there's been a handful of times where they've said that they're friends or have gotten to know each other on a personal level, but a personal level doesn't necessarily mean anything other than friendship and I don't think that phrasing it the way they did is playing coy. I don't think that you can use the argument that she's more affectionate with him than Charlie as an indicator of anything, either. They're two completely different situations with two completely different people. Some people are naturally affectionate and comfortable with being that way in public and some people aren't. D/W have never been overly affectionate and have always been very straightforward and almost businesslike in their presentation. They like each other a lot, but they've never presented that way and there's been a lot of discussion regarding that having more to do with Charlie than Meryl. On the flip side, Maks has been stated to be incredibly affectionate with people he cares about by a number of people who have known him for years. Maybe Meryl doesn't really care either way and is happy to go along whichever her partner is comfortable with. You can tell that she's relaxed somewhat about it and that early on she was a little taken aback by it, but that doesn't mean that the goal in Maks' mind was to sell a showmance. Yes, he's been around for awhile and knows how to play the game. Yes, he's done it before. But I don't think there have been any glaring red flags this season unless you want them to be glaring red flags and there are people on both sides who want them to be glaring red flags. The shippers will take them as that so that they can squeal about their OTP and the antis will take them as red flags so they can have something to complain about.

Autographed pictures of members of a fake boyband that became a real boyband and their blonde Australian partner don't do it for you?

You definitely aren't.

There are different view counts for different videos. The channel I use because the videos are usually uploaded in HD very quickly after the show airs and it includes rehearsal footage has the following: Cha Cha Cha (3) - 217,108 Swing (2)- 232,323 Foxtrot (4) - 162,737 AT (1) - 370,311 Samba (6) - 154,375 Tango (5) - 159,671 Salsa (7) - 118,037 Rumba (8) - 74,798 Jive (10) - 24,415 VW (9) - 27,867 I left them in the order they were danced because that is somewhat important to take into consideration, but in parentheses is how they rank in overall views.

From most of my understanding, Charlie and Meryl will throw themselves into what dance the program requires but to classify them as professionally trained dancers might be a bit much because that's immediately applied to the ice where the bottom half of their body doesn't necessarily sync to what's done on the floor. I'm not saying there aren't advantages, but I think they come more from athleticism, being trained performers, and history of working with partners than it does from the techniques learned for skating. They have 17 years of training in a sport where much of the technique will actually result in a lot of the lower body requirements being counterintuitive to them which we saw a lot of in Charlie tending to be flat footed or on his heels and struggles with almost any sort of hip motion.

Here's the thing... The emphasis is probably more appropriately ICE dancers. At the end of the day they are ICE skaters not dancers. Transfer of weight, momentum, and lower body movement is all incredibly different on skates than on the floor. That's one of the reasons we saw Charlie struggle so much with Latin movement and while Meryl struggled far less, I would say that early on she did have some struggles. The patterns required in ice dance are more approximations of ballroom steps than direct translations of them.