S23.E10: Week 7

[spanana]

20 hours ago, katha said:

And the different starting points for the candidates is also a factor: You're exposing yourself by participating, the risk to embarass yourself on national TV is big. So if they want to recruit celebs after over twenty seasons, they can't be "realistic" in their scores. Maureen etc. can't be permanently stuck at four points or something, though that might be "fair" in relation to better dancers. So this will necessarily throw the scoring out of joint, since there's no way to properly acknowledge the differences in quality if your lowest paddle is seven.

ETA: Jana has jazz on immunity night next week, it wouldn't surprise me if she gets it. IMO she's looking like someone who perhaps struggles with votes and they might want to get her past this week so they can get rid of "weaker" dancers.

All of this.  The judges can't be realistic in scoring if they ever want to get any celebs to sign up for the show.  Celebrities aren't doing DWTS to be embarrassed and be trashed week in and week out.  The show already asks celebs to be completely vulnerable and egos are far too fragile.  Every agent would be advising their clients against the show if that were the case.  Plus beyond that is it really fair to be judging everyone on the same scale?  If celebs come in with varying levels of experience and physical ability, can you really hold them all to the same standard?  Do we expect a young person with extensive professional dance training, like a Corbin, to be starting in the same place as a Tommy Chong?   The whole premise of the show in that sense is completely ridiculous.

I think the show wants to give Jana the immunity and are doing what they can to get her there.  However of course the show can only do so much.  She still has to at least perform a somewhat competent jazz to get there.  If she falls three times, the judges can't hand her 10s and immunity.  Though I'm not sure how much it matters.  Laurie is in no danger of going home and I imagine both Calvin and James, who had a nice cushion at the top of the leaderboard will have no problem being safe this week.

Edited October 28, 2016 by spanana

[Mondayeve]

Agree Katha and Spanana.

Another thing are the factors of performance and personality.  Anytime you are on TV those qualities will come into play.  That includes the pros as well.  It absolutely counts and I can never get the fans who insist all scoring and voting should be based on dancing only. 

[sinycalone]

Jana is a better dancer than Ryan...and Marilu.  However, I think Terra has so much more personality when performing.  I don't think she's a great dancer, but Terra does put a lot of herself into her dances.  What will TPTB do when it comes down to either Jana or Terra (should that happen)...I doubt that they will keep protecting Jana.

[Princt1]

Dog yapping even louder. Trying to drown out nice cats. Helppppppppp someone!!!!

[RedFiat]

Next week on DWTS - 

On Monday night’s show, for the first round of the competition, each of the seven remaining couples will perform an individual Halloween-themed routine in a dance style not yet danced. The highest-scoring couple from the first round will receive immunity, cannot be eliminated and does not have to compete in the Dance Off, and will also receive an additional five points added to their judges scores.

The remaining six couples will dance off against each other, either dancing a cha cha, salsa or jive. The winner of each dance off will receive an additional three points added to their judges scores. At the end of the night, one couple will be eliminated.

The couples will dance to the following songs:

Here’s the song and dance list for Halloween night:

Marilu Henner & Derek Hough – Argentine Tango – “Sweet Dreams” by Emily Browning
Terra Jolé & Sasha Farber – Cha Cha “Day – O” by Harry Belafonte
James Hinchcliffe & Sharna Burgess – Viennese Waltz – “You Don’t Own Me” by Grace ft. G-Easy
Calvin Johnson Jr. & Lindsay Arnold – Quickstep – “Dr. Bones” by Cherry Poppin’ Daddies
Laurie Hernandez & Val Chmerkovskiy – Viennese Waltz – “Pure Imagination” by Jane Monheit
Jana Kramer & Gleb Savchenko – “Little Shop of Horrors” by Alan Menken
Ryan Lochte & Cheryl Burke – Tango – “Howlin’ For You” by The Black Keys

So it will be interesting,  JUST JARED did not post Jana's dance style, but if she has Jazz then she is definitely primed for immunity. This is the only dance with no ballroom rules .  Little Shop of Horrors is a perfect jive tempo but they already had jive.  

So who had the the cha cha, jive or salsa previously?

Cha Cha  -

Laurie and Val,  

Calvin and Lindsay 

Ryan and Cheryl 

James and Sharna 

Marilu and Derek

 and it will be fresh for Terra and Sasha having it as the individual dance. 

 Jana and Gleb have not had cha cha previously

JIVE

Marilu and Derek 

Terra and Sasha 

Laurie and Val

Calvin and Lindsay 

Jana and Gleb 

Ryan and Cheryl,   James and Sharna have not had Jive previously

SALSA

Ryan and Cheryl 

Laurie and Val 

James and Sharna,  Calvin and Lindsay,  Terra and Sasha,  Jana and Gleb, have not had Salsa previously.  Marilu and Derek have not had Salsa, but they did do a Cha Cha that had Salsa elements,  Derek calls it Chalsa

Edited October 28, 2016 by RedFiat

[boyznkatz]

Why would TPTB be interested in protecting Jana? They don't seem that invested in Gleb, and she doesn't work for ABC. I see her more as a "surprise" elimination, even though it wouldn't be a surprise LOL.

[RedFiat]

As folks have mentioned Jana has Jazz which does not follow rules of ballroom and on this show usually gets lenient treatment in terms of scoring. Everyone else has a ballroom dance. And there are those who think that her prop heavy AT was more the reason than her dancing for the perfect 40. She's been on the road travelling a lot and hasn't done 2 out of the 3 immunity challenges as individual dances.  

Any of the others could win immunity, but conditions seem to point to Jana and Gleb.  

[spanana]

1 hour ago, boyznkatz said:

Why would TPTB be interested in protecting Jana? They don't seem that invested in Gleb, and she doesn't work for ABC. I see her more as a "surprise" elimination, even though it wouldn't be a surprise LOL.

I don't know that the show cares about propping Jana to get her to the finale.  But I do think they want her to stick around a few more weeks and if the other favorites/potential winners are in no real danger of going home this week, then they might try to save her on a week where she is likely struggling for votes.  Jana/Gleb have been somewhat controversial so far and the show likes controversial.

But I do think there have been a few immunity challenges where the dance draws seemed set-up to give it to one person and then it wound up not happening, though I can't remember specifics. 

[RedFiat]

It would be more interesting if someone like Marilu or Terra got immunity.   Jana has Jive as her one dance off dance she's done previously and it would be very interesting to see who she would be put up against.  

Edited October 28, 2016 by RedFiat

[Hiacios]

Team Past did an amazing group dance and James and Calvin both had great dances. :)

[gimmeegimmeegim]

Cal and Lindsay sittin' in a tree, How much cooler can they be? Little birdie told me. Oops, just you wait!

[Snarklepuss]

Weighing in late here -

Regarding not knowing about the '60s, isn't Laurie only 15?  I presume she'll have plenty of time to learn more about it.  But truthfully, most of what I learned about earlier decades didn't come from school but just from being exposed to stuff on TV, books and magazines.  Plus my parents would tell me stuff.  You can't even walk into a CVS or restaurant without hearing '60s music plus news stations love to play shows on all the decades of the 20th century.  A lot happened in the '60s - It's hard to miss it unless you are really that tuned out of things.  I was her age in the 1970s and I knew a lot about the '20s just from being exposed to TV and movies about the popular culture and historical events of the time, plus watching 20's movies on TV (Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy come to mind).  And we didn't even have the internet back then.  I remember wishing I could be a flapper girl and dance the Charleston, LOL.  So I don't think I'm as forgiving about her not knowing anything about it, and I'm not willing to give her a pass on the basis of knowing but not wanting to say anything about it either.

Re: Maureen, she was uncomfortable to watch.  I actually was looking forward to her being on the show this season not knowing much about her life since the "Brady Bunch", but wow I was not prepared for this.  I felt second hand embarrassment for her.  Whatever abuse she put her body through earlier in her life is really showing now.  She looks older than Marilu Henner.  I'm only 2 years younger than Maureen but I look at least 10 years younger.  I was seriously not expecting that.  She is really damaged goods.  I feel sorry for her but it was painful to see her put on such an obvious act because she seems to find her real self so wanting.  It was overdone and often downright cringeworthy.  I suppose feeling so unworthy, she had a hard time feeling like she had to live up to this larger than life phenomenon that she became in the popular culture.  She probably always felt she fell short.  How horrible for her.  My heart goes out to anyone who lacks confidence and she does seem like a genuinely sweet person but again, wow.

Re: Team future - What were they trying to say about the future with those drab uniform-like costumes?  Are we all going to be in Starfleet Academy or an Orwellian dystopia?  I just think they could have found a better way to get whatever it is they were trying to get across but didn't come across at all.

Re: Len - I too thought the show was presenting him as retiring from the show a few seasons ago.  Tom even phrased it as "Len's final season", it was that specific.  I know I didn't misinterpret that. 

[Love2dance]

1 hour ago, Snarklepuss said:

Weighing in late here -

Regarding not knowing about the '60s, isn't Laurie only 15?  I presume she'll have plenty of time to learn more about it.  But truthfully, most of what I learned about earlier decades didn't come from school but just from being exposed to stuff on TV, books and magazines.  Plus my parents would tell me stuff.  You can't even walk into a CVS or restaurant without hearing '60s music plus news stations love to play shows on all the decades of the 20th century.  A lot happened in the '60s - It's hard to miss it unless you are really that tuned out of things.  I was her age in the 1970s and I knew a lot about the '20s just from being exposed to TV and movies about the popular culture and historical events of the time, plus watching 20's movies on TV (Harold Lloyd and Laurel and Hardy come to mind).  And we didn't even have the internet back then.  I remember wishing I could be a flapper girl and dance the Charleston, LOL.  So I don't think I'm as forgiving about her not knowing anything about it, and I'm not willing to give her a pass on the basis of knowing but not wanting to say anything about it either.

 

But I think that is the point. Besides homeschooling, it seems Laurie's entire childhood was spent in a gym. She hasn't been exposed to most of the cultural and historical references in her every day life that we have.

And I agree with the experiences of other posters: both in my, and my children's schooling, modern history was barely covered due to time constraints at the end of the year. So, I do give her a pass on knowledge of the 60's.

[katha]

That whole thing was also played as a "funny bit" by the show, so you never know how much is scripted. And yeah, Laurie's gymnastics background makes her super sheltered. Her life so far seems to have been homeschooling and training for competitions. There's a whole discussion to be had if that is a good thing etc., but surely none of that is Laurie's fault. I also thought the giggling in the sky box etc. was just something where we didn't know the whole story, since apparently something had gone on in rehearsal, Val made a reference to it and Laurie started giggling in response.

[Snarklepuss]

5 hours ago, Love2dance said:

But I think that is the point. Besides homeschooling, it seems Laurie's entire childhood was spent in a gym. She hasn't been exposed to most of the cultural and historical references in her every day life that we have.

And I agree with the experiences of other posters: both in my, and my children's schooling, modern history was barely covered due to time constraints at the end of the year. So, I do give her a pass on knowledge of the 60's.

OK but that's just the thing.  If a person spends most of their life in a gym and doesn't get exposed to much of anything else I see that as a problem right there.  I don't think anything could have prevented me from having exposure to such cultural things as a young person, despite having a lot of demands placed on me from other directions.  It's just something I wanted to do.  Everyone's different but still it's a choice she's made to live that kind of life.  Besides, she seemed to know ALL about Michael Jackson who was mostly before her time so I don't buy that she has no time to be exposed to anything else.

Edited October 31, 2016 by Snarklepuss

[realdancemom]

I don't know how much was scripted.  They were playing up the It Takes Two to Make Things Go Right vs. Tango bit.  There was a little Instagram clip that somebody posted in this forum that wasn't shown on TV where Val and Laurie were joking about it.  I do think that Laurie probably didn't watch TV very much.  She might have known Michael Jackson because I can see his songs being used for warm-ups, classes, routines, etc.

[Snarklepuss]

I don't know I guess a lot less general knowledge is expected of younger people today.  Wasn't so in my era in general.  Now more people are specialists in one thing and not what I would consider well rounded.

[ItsHelloPattiagain]

Quote

But I think that is the point. Besides homeschooling, it seems Laurie's entire childhood was spent in a gym. She hasn't been exposed to most of the cultural and historical references in her every day life that we have.

Coming in late on this, but I have two daughters that grew up in a gym (25 hours a week at a national training center although they weren't national team caliber) and were also homeschooled. They certainly were exposed to cultural and historical references as much as the other kids that attended school. Plus they listened to the radio and watched TV and had other social experiences. IMHO I think if they asked a bunch of kids around the same age, they would probably get similar responses. I think Laurie was just trying to be funny. 

[katha]

31 minutes ago, ItsHelloPattiagain said:

Coming in late on this, but I have two daughters that grew up in a gym (25 hours a week at a national training center although they weren't national team caliber) and were also homeschooled. They certainly were exposed to cultural and historical references as much as the other kids that attended school. Plus they listened to the radio and watched TV and had other social experiences. IMHO I think if they asked a bunch of kids around the same age, they would probably get similar responses. I think Laurie was just trying to be funny. 

I think it's also played as a joke by DWTS and no one there probably thought much about it. And yeah, it seems Laurie is a bit of a jokester and some of the things in the packages have come across as ongoing in-jokes/banter that she and Val have, but we as viewers don't really understand since we don't get the context.