kitcloudkicker

Not so sure about that, for one, the internet has her at 6'2 which would be really hard to pair, unless they let the male pro be shorter, which they don't like to do. (Closest they've done might be Val (6') and Zendaya (5'10) together and she made fun of him for being "short" all season.) Tallest male pros are Tony (6'1) Keo (can't find his height, but he seems taller than Tony) and if they beg Maks to come back (6'2). I'm not the most confident Keo is mature enough to make that work? I'm also not that convinced that DWTS is gonna be first on her list of things to do. It actually might be great to have her on though. Not a big Kardashian fan, but I like what she's doing for trans visibility. And who knows, maybe giving Keo an older partner could bring something great out of him, like Peta with Tommy Chong. Even better might be if they can get Laverne Cox, she's still tall, but at 5'11 would be sliiightly easier to pair.

If I get to be unrealistic about height differences, probably Mark or Derek, because they seem the most patient. But I'm 5'10, so if we have to be realistic I guess my choices narrow to Tony, Keo, Maks if he ever came back, and borderline Val, because they put him with Zendaya. (Though she spent the whole season calling him short.) Out of those maybe Val, to join in on the Zendaya short joke party, because that seems like it'd be fun.

No one on this show "deserves" anything, so I didn't bring up the Nastia stuff to make a case for why she NEEDED to be in the finale. For me the final week fell flat, and I think it would have been a more interesting show with her in it. She had a connection with Derek that I'm bummed wasn't shown. You can argue that it needed to come through in the dances, and maybe it still didn't, but the packages set up whispers that affect how people see the dancing. Just something I was disappointed about. Maybe it would have changed the result 0% if they showed more of that, who knows. They finished where they did. I don't know that it needed to have "changed anything" to have her there, it just would have made the finale more interesting to have both Rumer and her there, IMO. IMO, IMO, IMO.

To close it out, last Afterbuzz: They are more critical with only three of them - maybe that's the key, less guests to suck up to, combined with less opinions to get through. Suri and Darvina seem to play the same role though (friend/acquaintance of a pro) - I'd say you really only need one of them.

That is why I was extra bummed to lose Nastia in the final. They were about there. I wanted a redo of their rumba and something really outstanding and connected for their freestyle. It would have been a chance to see something from them we hadn't seen yet. Riker's freestyle, while I do find him entertaining to watch, didn't show us that much of a different side to him from his trio jazz, and Noah, while I liked his freestyle more than I thought I would, really just gave us an extended version of his earlier contemporary. I don't know what we would have gotten from a Nastia freestyle, and that's why I wanted to see it. And then, totally, Rumer as the winner, because she was great all season, and a beautiful dancer, and it meant a lot to both her and Val, and that was really nice to see. Their jive/paso rehearsal (from the week of all the "drama") is even more fun. Nastia is really giggly, and it just makes me disappointed they never showed us any of that all season.

I dunno, Sasha and Derek looked pretty good together. https://youtu.be/LqMVvZndhuU?t=15m55s(That should start at the right spot but if it doesn't skip to about 15:55)

Julianne on the Sia dance: http://juliannehough.com/my-favorite-moment-dancing-with-the-stars-finale/ I can't say this makes the most (any?) sense, or that any of that came across, but I loved the dance anyway. At this point, I just expect Sia dances to be strange, but weirdly compelling.

There are two things I keep thinking of when considering "producer manipulation" on this show. They're a little bit nerdy, so I apologize in advance. ;) The first is an episode of Doctor Who, where the British Prime Minister pisses off the Doctor, and he responds by saying, "I can bring down your administration with 6 words." And then he leans over to one of her staff members and whispers, "Don't you think she looks tired?" And by the next day, the news media has exploded, "Is the Prime Minister sick? The job's taking too much out of her! Is she up to the task?!" That's what it feels like happens here. Nastia: "Don't you think she looks wooden and bitchy?" Charlie: "Don't you think he looks boring?" A whisper becomes the narrative, and when you can whittle down a week of footage into a minute and a half, it's not possible to have NO agenda. In terms of agenda, the second is in the first Hunger Games book/movie, when Katniss is busy when she first gets into the arena finding food and water, using all her survival skills to stay alive and away from the other contestants. And the Gamesmakers (producers) go, "UGH, boring, we're losing our audience, lets set everything on fire so they're forced into each other's paths to get some action going." THATS what I consider the driving motivation behind any producer storyline manipulating. Nastia is too focused on the dancing and not giving them soundbites about "drama" in rehearsal? Sandbag her with a negative package and see how she reacts. (The audience will love it! Or hate it! But they'll talk about it!) Val is getting too focused on just getting Rumer to the finale? Set him up by making him point out Nastia's flaws, show that, and set him right into the path of the fan's Chmerkovskiy vs Hough battle. (Hurray, everyone's talking about it again!) If the entire show is a game, the producers ultimately win by gaining attention. And that's their motivation.

Derek congratulates Val & Rumer: "OMG what a camera hog, I see you trying to weasel your way into the shot." Derek does not congratulate Val & Rumer: "OMG so entitled, did you see him not even go over there when the rest of the dancers were swarming them??" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Him and Jullianne were also shown giving a pep talk and high fives to the kids before they went out. Because we didn't seen them go over to the kids in the 5 seconds we saw of them after the dance doesn't mean they didn't congratulate them and thank them. I also rather liked all the "filler" last night. I liked how it was mostly dancing, and they had the dancing stacked up one after another, so as soon as one dance ended another one would start. I liked that they integrated the outside set. I didn't care at all who won, though Rumer is a fine winner, but the show itself felt better put together than the anniversary special.

He didn't, it was Tessandra Chavez https://twitter.com/tessandrachavez/status/600766983898935296 They definitely reused the set though. (I really liked it.)

Because the Bachelorette premiers tonight? #subtleasasledgehammer

They all feel right to me. Rumer, intense dramatic ballroom, I'm guessing the "contemporary" addition is so they have a little more creative leeway in some of the moves they choose to do. Riker, high energy hip-hop/jazz plays to his strengths. Noah - crazy good at lifts. Still a bit bummed we don't get to see what Nastia would do, but with these three, it all seems right. Everyone's got a different flavor/tone which is always good for balance. But then, I like contemporaries.

Derek and Amy are doing something with them for the results show - their freestyle is with a bunch of troupe dancers. (Mark, Jenna, Lindsay, and one of the new guys, I think.)

I follow Amy on instagram, and she was in Puerto Rico getting engaged as of yesterday, so if she's dancing she better get back quick. My guess, if they're doing this, is a bumper in the final results show a la the Meryl/Charlie dance last year. Love Amy, don't love consistently lumping her in with Noah. :/

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ He sounded like he was joking with the "classy" comment to me. If I were the type to be into signatures, I'd append "It's not that serious." -- Val Chmerkovskiy to everything.

This doesn't seem like whininess at all. But it doesn't matter. Val said it on Afterbuzz. If people have made up their minds about a pro, they're just going to write off anything positive as "PR Media Training." Fans will see it as sincere, anti-fans will see it as insincere. I just keep this guy handy to express my reality show emotions: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

He's said this in all the seasons I've paid attention to, which has been the last two. He prepped Amy for "a feeling that it was going to be Maks and Meryl," and he prepped Bethany for a fourth place finish as well. I believe both of them confirmed it. I don't have a hard time believing that he's got a good sense for how the show is edited, both because he's been on for so long, and because he's got an interest and aptitude towards directing - you start to get a sense of story structure. If you feel like scrounging it up, Sasha's instagram has some fun bits from rehearsals, and live streams of their rehearsals are floating around that show they seem to have had a pretty easy, nice friendship. It's a bummer they didn't ever show it in the edited versions, and that it didn't come across to most people. Maybe I'm in a minority of weirdos, because reality TV shows never give me this, but I find fun, goofy moments of people getting along so much more interesting than "drama" which usually amounts to tired people sniping at each other a bit. (Zzzzzzzzz.)

Aubrey Peeples is starring in the new Jem and the Holograms movie. The trailer was just released, and it seems to be going over as well as Layla storylines (like lead balloons) http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/05/the-trailer-for-jem-and-the-holograms-is-truly-outrageously-bad-watch/

The thing that bothers me about Noah, is that if he had not ever been injured, I feel like we'd see him dancing at the level that Chris was at. "Put my arm here. Move myself over here. Step step step turn. Pick up girl." I don't get the sense from him that he's feeling the music, or moving to it, or performing in a real way. If we have to compare the "disabled" contestants, I loved Amy's dances, because girl was a natural. She moved with the music. She was absolutely in the top of that season for me. That's where it feels like pandering to Noah for me. Sure, his limitations are greater because he doesn't have the knee, and the leading arm. But I haven't gotten the feel from him that he's connected at all with the musicality of it, and that makes all his performances fall extra flat. And why I compare him more to Candace from that season.

I would have loved it if they smashcut to an intense battle scene of them storming the beaches at Normandy: 1940s. No dancing. *smashcut* Right back into dancing.

I didn't see much of a difference with Sasha vs Derek, but I did see a difference a bit when they were able to stay in LA, and just focus on the one thing. (Although I don't know what happened with Nastia's class work?) I watched their rehearsal streams, and they seemed more relaxed and goofy at the LA ones. Derek had this crazy "NET: No Extra Time" philosophy for splitting the work in New York, and while it might have been efficient I don't know how much they were able to bond during it. (Every time she got the, "you guys aren't connecting" critique I kept thinking - if this were a cheesy dance movie, that would be the moment when they'd have a frustrating rehearsal, and then one of them would say "You know what, we just need to get out of here," and then there'd be a montage of them at Coney Island letting loose, and then miraculously they'd be connected.) She might have still gotten the "you seem cold" edit, because obviously her personality tends towards the closed off, but I would have been interested if it would have made a difference. The narrative might have been able to shift slightly sooner. (Or it may not have, who knows.)

I will say I think Noah is most comparable to Candace/Bristol (though I didn't watch the Bristol season) - beyond "limitations", I just don't think the guy has that much rhythm. And I think he's got the same voting block. Yes definitely, and I gotta believe Ross was their first choice, and somehow he was able to say no and foist his brother on them. (Riker's won me over, mostly, but I can't believe "minor role on Glee and in mildly successful band" was more enticing than "star of hit Disney channel show and in mildly successful band")

Saaaaad. :( I've said this before, but I'm honestly uninterested in who wins this show, but I DO care who's freestyles I get to see. I was bummed we didn't get a Charlie freestyle, and I really really wanted to see a Nastia freestyle. And I'm now massively less interested in the final. I will say this, and I'm saying this as a fan of Derek. He did do her a disservice by not being able to be there fully as a partner - she could keep up with the technical stuff in the time crunch they had, but they weren't able to click in to a partnership until too late. It wasn't the training she needed, it was the partnership. He made some comment early on where he was like, "We're actually more productive than when we're at the studios with everyone, because it's all work and there's no time to goof around." And I was all, "Nooooooo, it's the goofing around you need to be doing!" I guess I'm glad she got to go out on a high note, at least. Bleh Noah.

Yeah, I'm not going to be surprised by anyone going home, except pleasantly surprised if it's Noah. Not surprised, but super bummed if it's Nastia or Rumer, and mildly bummed if it's Riker.

Mark looked like the leader of the "mean kids gang" in an early 90s rollerblading movie. I'm going to be really bummed if Rumer, Nastia or Riker (spellcheck hates all those names) go home, but I'm guessing that proposal put Noah in the final. Meh. Loved the contemporary (great to see Allison shine at what she's good at, and Riker kept up), and Nastia's dances best tonight. I liked Rumer too, though I might be more sick of 50 Shades of Gray than I am of Frozen. She looked gorgeous in the ballet dance. It was a good night though, entertaining all around. I wish it was Noah's time to go, but I don't see that happening.