Glaadrial

Thanks to everyone here who posted their thoughts on this episode. As I'm on the West Coast, I decided to spoil myself so that I could skip it if Rumer was eliminated (which I thought was a real probability based on her getting the Charlie White edit...i.e. the redemption (Val's) episode coming a week too soon...coupled with the "honest" score from Len/Jullianne). The reactions here allowed me to appreciate the show in a different way than I would have if I'd gone in unspoiled. Had she not been eliminated, I think that Val's comment could have been interpreted as honestly constructive and would have served Nastia very well going into the Finals; ditto for Sharna's. I'm sad to see her go, and once again she didn't disappoint in making canned media training sound sincere and meaningful. I don't need to see her tears of disappointment; I am a fan of her grace and her poise under pressure. She is a remarkable champion.

Did they say something about lifts in Judge's Choice? Ironically, Carrie Ann "Lift Police" Inaba conceived of a Paso where the guy is lifted.

This is an excellent point. More so when we consider the context of the discussion surrounding Allison as a Pro. Obviously, it's not the same situation but it does serve to highlight the different requirements for success among the different genre of dance. There's really only so much anyone can do without training in the fundamentals of each genre at an early age.

Then if not boobs (which would give her a more "feminine" shape up top), then perhaps she should get hip implants so that she's no longer straight up and down with ripped abs and no hips or waist? I don't see how that could be feasible but maybe there is some other way that she could find to alter her appearance so that it would be appealing to someone who thinks differently. I like Allison's body exactly as it is, and I love her dancing, even if in this setting her strengths do not complement the rigidity of what is expected for Ballroom Dance.

Someone mentioned upthread that Tom tweeted during last week's live show that the double elimination was not to be. If this is true then I guess the decision was made before voting even started. At least they stuck with the "faux" bottom two format and refrained from calling it the actual bottom two, but what was up with Erin's extra special "make special note of the phone number/we're saying this for a reason" during Rumer/Val's vote shilling? Perhaps Val was not so confident after all and had all kinds of doubts because of the little tidbit from Erin. It would explain Val's intensity when standing in the faux bottom two. I can kind of understand it because a) over the years he's never really been interested in hiding his intensity, and b) he knows that it's not always or even, really, ever just about the dancing which is the only thing that he has any say in. Judged competitions are strange beasts. The most amazing attitude that I have seen from an athlete in a judged competition was Nastia Liukin at the Bejing Olympics when she won the Silver in the Uneven Bars event final. I thought she was unquestionably robbed of the gold in her signature event; in the post event interviews, however, Nastia was Class personified and it didn't sound like canned media training. It would have been interesting to see if Nastia could have had a similar calming influence on Val as Meryl had on Maks. Still, we don't have Nastia/Val and instead have Rumer/Val. For me Val and Rumer's Foxtrot was not only the dance-off of the night, it was the dance of the night. Nothing else I saw tonight was anywhere as close to a 10 as that Foxtrot. I'm not sure what Julianne was watching that she thought it was close in the dance-off between Rumer and Chris, but I have to wonder if it had been her brother dancing instead of Val, that she would have offered that particular bit of inanity.

OMG, LOL! Derek is literally phoning it in!

Emma was a terrific choice for Mark. She has the right personality to do the heavy lifting in the dance and allowing Mark to cast the spotlight on Sadie. It was my favorite dance from Sadie to date. I think that Carrie Ann's inane comment that she couldn't tell which was the pro is a testament to Mark's choreography and Emma's generosity as a dancer and comedic actress. Sadie's 10s kind of made Janel's 10s from earlier make more sense. To my eye, hers was the top trio while Janel's was the top pair dance of the night--even with the mistakes in both, for me the dances transcended the errors. At some point the judges are gonna need to take up their content issues with the folks responsible for choosing the music. I won't quibble with the "experts" as far as what constitutes Salsa content, but to my untrained eye the quality of the steps and hip movement in the Salsa trio was sufficient to give the impression that this dance was representative of what I would expect for an Afro-Cuban Salsa to tribal music. I generally like Bethany but I thought that she was a little to "bendy" in many of her AT poses. Tommy is a hoot but I think that two full-out dances may have been too much despite him being such a trouper. I think Peta should have dug deep to find her inner Derek and just flat out created her version of a hand-jive Samba or airline seat version of his table dance. Alas, she probably doesn't rate a hydraulic stage to simulate turbulence.

I give the Whoopie and Rosie show (opening segment) a huge pass normally because they work really well off of each other. Had they stopped the Palin bit with Rosie's "Comedy is hard" punchline, I think, maybe, it would have been fine. Continuing as they did caused me to FF for the first time during Hot Topics this season; to me they came off as quintessential mean girls and it made me feel as uncomfortable as I would watching any comedian bomb. I'm sure there's footage of other politicians on both sides bombing when trying their hand at comedy. If it was a regular segment or motif to skewered these people (both male and female), I'd be much more appreciative of the routine.

I watched Julianne's dance back in slow motion; Val did a valiant (heh, pun!) job of covering for Julianne who probably reached too far for what she is able to do tricks-wise, she's nowhere near where she was when she was 22. He got her up and over and got her down and safely on her mark, what happens in the air is on her, he was certainly a sturdy enough base for her to work off of if she was still able to do that kind of stuff. "Dropping her" in rehearsal probably prepared Val to be able to handle her mishap when it occurred live. The rehearsal mishap is not something that should have been shown on television because it's part of the process of bringing new tricks to the dance floor and the general public are just not familiar enough with what it takes to create these "Wow!" moments to watch it without prejudice; in the end, it's not good for anyone involved to have this peak behind the curtain. These folks are pros and I'm sure this is mild compared to the stuff that happens in Ice Rinks, for example (Yes, I'm missing seeing Meryl on my TV every week).

This is an interesting observation. I would add that seeing her try to Ballroom is a LOT more comfortable to watch than when many (most/all) of the Ballroom pros try to do Contemporary/Jazz. Mark's Jazz this week (week 2) looked like a pretty good Freestyle to me; as a Jazz piece, I was underwhelmed. Based on her chat with Erin, I'm getting the vibe that Allison's approach to the show is probably different than the way that more traditional Ballroom pros approach their assigned dances. It seems kind of obvious to me, that this is why she was hired in the first place. For good or for ill, Derek is the breakout star choreographer on the show and he's never been afraid to play fast and loose with the content he requires of his partners. It remains to be seen if Allison will resonate with the audience by attempting to bring a different approach to the Ballroom dances she's assigned.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed her partnership with Mark during the musical guest performance on the results show. I found myself thinking back to Julianne's snark during her first stint as guest judge. I got the impression that she approached dancing with Mark as a kind of adversarial one-upmanship (of course, all she said is that his partners need to be aware that they will need to keep up with him because he won't tone it down, or some such) In any case, I thought that Whitney and Mark have a similar approach to performance and the pairing worked extremely well. I didn't get the sense that she was trying to keep up with him or one-up him, it felt like two full-out performers supporting each other's full-out commitment to the performance. It was fun to watch which is not something that I think very often when watching Mark dance.

I hope it doesn't turn out that the poor guy has a Tyroid condition, but even if he doesn't it's a feature of his face and hardly something that he would be able to control.

But boy, oh, boy, when she does get to speak in her field of expertise, it's amazing how much insight she can give on the subject in so few sentences. I'm thinking of the Air Force One reference and her take on the current crisis. Presumably free from needing to make a name for herself as a Talking Head on cable news program, she is able to really look at an issue and apply her knowledge and experience to put some meaning to the endless spin we're normally subjected to. I think she's still finding her voice in regards to other issues and was probably called out for cross talk in the first couple of episodes. This team have good chemistry even in conflict. I don't think that I would like a Nanny State run by the Rosie's squared. I like them both as entertainers (I saw the Frozen rant as a bit...and a pretty good one), but I'm more comfortable with Whoopie's POV in these last few debates. I get very nervous when TV personalities behave like they know better about how I should lead my life than I do (Don't worry, I don't have any kids to beat, shame or intoxicate).

Yes I did. That would be a good supposition, except that they could better accomplish that by participating in a joint interview, you know, on the actual show that presumably has the larger audience than any of the reporters they could chase down. In any case, if they're toying with me with the intimacy (performance show) that's just fine with me. Is the absence of something from the show considered "on topic" for the show thread?

They should have advertised that Maks was gonna be in the audience and that the camera was going to catch a shot of Meryl's hand on his knee.

This logic seems vaguely familiar to me, but I can't quite place where I've read about Maks' pathological obsession with winning the MBT...oh, yes, now I remember.

I think the press release said that one of the remaining 3 couples will do their freestyle as an encore. The fourth place finisher was always going to get an encore of whatever dance they wanted to do just like all of the other ousted contestants. Of course, JetaNation went crazy with the #encorejames tweets so maybe Meryl will catch a break by having to dance one less dance tonight. Maybe the peeps at ABC will see stars in their eyes and change the rules to cater to the devoted fans that wanted to send a message about ousting their favorite. Although, one would think that if these fans were legion that they would have been able to produce enough votes to not have him ousted in the first place, but who knows what goes on in the minds of suits chasing youth. Obviously, the folks at JetaNation were not aware of the parade of Encores of the Ousted Stars. Perhaps James will get to do two dances or just one at the beginning?

Anna has been pretty clear from the beginning that she's not overly impressed by Maks, period. She knows from personal experience that guiding a ringer to the Mirrorball is not as easy as it seems. She knows exactly what Amy is doing and is not doing and if that's more to her taste than what Meryl is doing.../shrug I've been inclined to give more credence to her compliments of M&M than her criticisms because I think her bias makes them harder to come by. No matter, I'm not a fan of hers because of her opinions, I'm a big fan of her personality (I loved her first meeting with Evan) and her dancing. I'm sure that people who don't like Maks are more inclined to agree with her criticisms. As far as I'm concerned Anna's just as entertaining whether I agree with her or not.

I'm bringing this over from the Finale thread because, well, this all happened during the show Monday, so... Seeing the rehearsal package before the AT gave us a glimpse into the process that Maks used to help Meryl achieve what they portrayed in the AT. By cutting her off as he did, he put her in the exact place where she needed to be emotionally for that dance. To me, it looked like she danced as his muse, It was a take on the character of the AT that I have not seen before. I think it may have been as big a risk as dancing Rumba in bare feet; albeit less so because it was Finale Night. "I don't need you to be better; I need you to be you, and I'll be better." Just wow. He cast her in a position, not as his inferior or even his equal like I've seen before in these challenge-type dances, but as his superior--his ideal. Throughout the dance, he is tormented by her smile and her ease. Rather than using overt sexual passion to create the dramatic tension, the struggle comes from his trying to reach her level of surety. I didn't want the dance to end. The freestyle was breathtaking and a brilliant culmination of the journey that, I think, began with the Foxtrot. Mark should have known better than to choose Disco for Candace's Freestyle. Stacy Keibler tried it and failed back in Season 2. Even when it's done well, it always seems "not special" to me. Disco, for me, is more fun to dance than it is to watch. I've always dreaded it whenever a personal favorite on SYTYCD has had it assigned to them. 8's does seem harsh but only because it's the finals. I can't really say I disagree with the score based on what the other couples did, though. Derek and Amy. All I can say is that if Tristan was announced to be in the line up for the season and then replaced with Derek (as has been reported elsewhere on the forum) as the partner for Amy, then I think the producers truly did Amy a disservice. She has been most excellent at executing the choreography that was given to her, I wish, however, that she had been partnered with someone who shows more confidence in the entertainment value of pure ballroom dancing. Tristan would have been most excellent in this regard, but perhaps he had to bow out for his own reasons and Derek came in to save the day. /shrug Nevertheless, I suspect that the other male pros would have done better with trying to approximate ballroom dance. Amy might not have found herself in the position of winning like she is now, but I think that she'd have probably ended up doing more than just Waltz and Quickstep from the traditional ballroom list and I think that this would have sent a clearer message about overcoming limitations. This message, I think, tended to get muddied by assigning all the dances that allowed lifts at the expense of doing dances that had more rigid requirements. I also think that the competition would have been more honest if we had more situations like what we saw when Derek/Amy put together their Waltz and, more impressively, Quickstep. I don't mean the drama, I mean the process. I hope it goes without saying that this is in no way a criticism of Amy because dance assignments were not hers to make. That she was assigned the Waltz based on her own request, indeed, is admirable. Likewise, her decision to do the show at all which facilitated establishing a dialog so that ignorance can become informed. I did feel a bit voyeuristic watching her switching her prosthetic as a bumper into commercial, but that's just me. Anyway, I'm so looking forward to the Meryl Davis show tomorrow night (win or lose, she'll be dancing quite a bit). Hopefully, Maks will give her a chance to rest up while he works out the choreography with one of the pros. If not, maybe he can create a routine where she plays a walking zombie.

For me, regardless of who takes home the Mirror Ball, Meryl Davis has already won DWTS. She will leave the show a better artist than how she arrived; and, let's face it, she arrived with a Gold Medal that proved her credentials as a seasoned artist. She has always been expressive on the ice. No detail--not a finger placement, not a facial expression--was too small to address. In Sochi (and at US Nationals before that) her work with Charlie was quite literally perfection. And yet, still, incredibly, she is better now. She has topped herself; I have no words to describe what she and Maks left on that dance floor on Finals night with both the AT and the Freestyle. I've replied in the show thread about the rest of this quoted post, but I brought this here because it's a continuation of a theme we've been discussing in this thread.

In case this might make anyone feel better, a 5% difference in viewer votes equates to 50,000 votes per million advantage for the contestant. This is sort of the reason that Charlie was eliminated despite having higher judges scores than everyone but Amy that week. The difference in judges' scores, even with 8's can't compete with those kinds of discrepancies among viewer votes. James and Amy were pretty close together in judges' scores last week. Since Candace, obviously, had enough votes to get past James, it's possible that she had enough votes to get past Amy as well. So, even with the judges' having remembered that there are 8 paddles available to them, it is likely that viewer votes will be determining who gets the Mirrorball Trophy tomorrow. At this point, the lower scores can only help the couple at the bottom of the leader board by motivating their fans to vote in cases where they normally might not. There was absolutely no advantage for Meryl in Len choosing to give Amy a 9, other than, possibly, to make Derek/Amy fans angry enough to vote harder for Amy. Nevertheless, this post from Smiley13 seems to indicate that the judging may have inspired fans who are neutral to M&M to make their votes count against Derek by throwing their votes to Meryl. Fan manipulation seems to be quite the tricky business.

Maksim, Maksim, Maksim!

If they went home in 4th place, it wouldn't have anything to do with this. The results tonight are based on last week's score/audience vote. This injury can only affect Candace if they make it past this round in which case if someone subs for Mark then the team would have to come up with a Fusion dance for the show tomorrow night. The pro would also need to be trained to sub in the TeamLoca encore, and whatever they had planned to do as an encore for not making it to the final night.

Which is exactly what makes reading that blog so entertaining. The earnestness with which this blogger presents contradictory themes is very funny to me. The hierarchy of her hatred is fascinating and no one is immune to her wrath, not even the object of her affection--who, I think, is Scott. Having ventured further down the rabbit hole than the DWTS coverage, I unearthed some gems buried a bit deeper--gems like, side-by-side slow-motion GIFS of D/W that are supposed to showcase sloppy twizzle steps that actually showcase the opposite. Whether the irony is intentional or accidental makes it no less hilarious, to me. The anonymous affirmations in the comments were also very amusing. Crazy Maks fans are able to forgive him much and will lay into Derek for doing the exact same thing; likewise will rabid Derek fans skewer Maks regardless of whether or not Derek is guilty of the same actions. There is a consistency to the madness that is not present in the Secret Baby blog which leads me to believe that it's for "entertainment purposes only." However, I do concede that I may be wrong in this assessment. In any case, the SBB is no where near as good as the Wire pieces from earlier in the season. Too bad the writer lost his job shortly after offering the following nugget about Meryl's Foxtrot: Coincidence?

This reminded me of how well Candace and Charlie did in the Deul Dance, and I thought: "What would happen if they brought him in as the lifts expert do dance freestyle with Candace?" Seriously, though, I hope it isn't as serious as it sounds and that Mark has a speedy and full recovery.