Dancing with the Stars season 17 has reached its end, and tonight one couple will be awarded the Mirror Ball Trophy. It’s down to Amber Riley, Corbin Bleu and Jack Osbourne, but who will win?
The viewer votes from Monday will be combined with Monday’s scores plus the scores of the final 24-Hour Fusion Dances. The three remaining couples each have just 24 hours to learn a new routine that combines two dance styles, as chosen on Monday’s show. Corbin and Karina will combine a Foxtrot and a Cha-Cha-Cha, Amber and Derek have the Samba and Quickstep, and Jack and Cheryl have Salsa and the Paso Doble.
The two-hour finale will also feature a number of other non-competitive performances. Lady Antebellum and Enrique Iglesias will both perform, Ylvis will do “The Fox” with assorted pros and celebrities dancing along and the inspirational Valerie Harper will perform with partner Tristan MacManus to Colbie Caillat’s “What a Wonderful World.” All of that plus an encore of whichever Freestyle the viewers tweeted as their favorite. While my vote goes for Corbin, it would be a fantastic consolation prize to see Bill one last time.
Stats for the Final 3
This marks Derek Hough’s seventh time in the Top 3 out of 12 appearances, and he’s looking for his fifth Mirror Ball. If he and Amber win, she would become the first African-American woman to win the title.
This is Karina Smirnoff’s fourth time in the Top 3 out of 14 appearances, and she’s looking for a second win after her season 13 title with J.R. Martinez.
This is Cheryl Burke’s 16th season on the show and her seventh time in the Top 3 (she and Derek are the only pros to appear in more than four finales). However, she hasn’t won since her back-to-back Mirror Balls way back in seasons 2 and 3. For Jack, he’s trying to best his own sister as Kelly finished third back in season 9.
Oddly enough, this finale is very similar to season 13’s. Not only did that year end with the same trio of pro partners, but Derek’s star was less-than-svelte (Ricki Lake) and Cheryl had a reality star from a prominent show biz family who defied the odds (Rob Kardashian).
Who Will Win?
To figure out who will win, we can look at the scores from Monday night to see half of the results. I assume the scores for the 24-Hour Fusion Dances will be the same, and if not, they should be close enough not to change too much. Based on Monday’s scores, here are the percentage breakdowns for the three remaining couples.
Amber and Derek: 34.97 percent
Corbin and Karina: 33.88 percent
Jack and Cheryl: 31.15 percent
I find it very doubtful that Jack will beat Corbin by 3 percent of the vote and Amber by 4 percent of the vote, so he has almost no chance of winning.
It really comes down to Amber and Corbin, as it has all season. In terms of their total scores throughout the season, Amber is only three points higher than Corbin. They both have three perfect scores Amber has been on top of the leaderboard seven out of 11 weeks while Corbin has been on top five weeks.
The question is: Assuming Amber and Corbin get the same scores for their Fusion dances (or even if there’s only a difference of a point or two), can Corbin get 1 percent more viewer votes than Amber? If he does that, he wins. If not, it’s Amber’s.
My Prediction
Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but I’m going to say that Corbin and Karina will win. I know people love Derek and Amber has the power of Gleeks, but Corbin has been more impressive to me and, hopefully, to DWTS fans. And while Amber’s country western Freestyle was good, Corbin’s Michael Jackson tribute was the kind of jaw-dropping excellence that gets people to vote. I think he might have just enough support to overcome that narrow 1 percent gap, and it might be even smaller if he can pick up a point or two on the Fusion dance.
Who do you think will win Dancing with the Stars season 17? Should Derek clear off a fifth spot on his mantle? Can Corbin take the title for Karina again? Will Cheryl finally mount a comeback after 14 consecutive seasons of not winning? Will Jack finish better than his sister or will they both get third place? Find out on the special two-hour DWTS finale Tuesday at 9pm on ABC.
(Image courtesy of ABC)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
John watches nearly every show on TV, but he specializes in sci-fi/fantasy like The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and True Blood. However, he can also be found writing about everything from Survivor and Glee to One Tree Hill and Smallville.
