It was a hard fought competition this week on Dancing With the Stars, for some. For others, it was clear the fight had left them, and the scoring reflected that. On tonight’s elimination show, for once, the scores between the voting audience and the in house Dancing With the Stars’ judges were very much in synch.
The procession through the safe couples was done in an ingeniously suspenseful way, saving pretty much the best for last, Joey Fatone and Kym Johnson. On Dancing With the Stars, the countdown to the final two is done entirely for dramatic effect, not by score. I don’t think there is any doubt, none the less, that Kym and Joey owned the competition last night.
The surprise for me was seeing Clyde Drexler avoid the final two. I predicted Clyde and Leeza Gibbons, and was close with Leeza and John Ratzenberger. John is, of course, the Jerry Springer element that the producers have determined works so well with audiences. Initially, when the season began, I though Ratzenberger was a mistake, mostly because he was so good. I think that in a business sense, they anticipated John being the under dog. Instead he shot out with some real comfort and a palpable sense of fun that made him instantly more favorable then the square peg that Jerry Springer started out as. In the past couple of competition, though, he has really lost that vigor that caught everybody’s attention the first week out.
So seeing John in the bottom was not all that surprising, and to be honest I was sure he was going home. So when it was announced that Leeza on her way out, I was totally shocked. Where John, for me, has become stale and mechanical, Leeza has been going out of her way to bust free of her stiffness. Her success has not been all that obvious, but at least it was sincere. I am not as convinced John still wants to be there.
Looking ahead, I still consider this competition easy to call. I’m seeing either Ratzenberger or Clyde dancing out the door next week. After those two are gone, the game will get harder to call.
-Jon Lachonis, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Photo courtesy of ABC)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
