Dancing With the Stars

Both James and Danica should have advanced before Candace, and I think she did very well, but her improvement was not as much as Danica & James each had.
Meryl is very shy.....and she & Charlie are not sweethearts at all. He is in a relationship with someone else off the ice, and as various friends & family have noted during the show, are like brother and sister. Heck, Maks' brother was the first one over to give him a congratulatory hug.
 
I have a strong body-language hunch that Meryl/Maks, and Peta/James are in non-professional relationships. You can usually predict the finalists, if not the winner, on the first night. It's really not fair to bring in ringers, or popular celebrities who have little hope of becoming good dancers. And the judges are also sometimes unfair. It's the plot, just like a soap!
 
I thought three hours was a bit of overkill! First hour listening to conversations that we heard on Monday night, I'm getting to old to appreciate the entertainment! One hour would have done the trick!

Maks said this morning on a talk show that he was giving his trophy to his Mom! Thoughtful son!
 
Poirot said:
Both James and Danica should have advanced before Candace, and I think she did very well, but her improvement was not as much as Danica & James each had.
Meryl is very shy.....and she & Charlie are not sweethearts at all. He is in a relationship with someone else off the ice, and as various friends & family have noted during the show, are like brother and sister. Heck, Maks' brother was the first one over to give him a congratulatory hug.
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I've followed Meryl and Charlie very closely for years. Charlie himself has stated on more than one occasion that he and Meryl are NOT brother/sister type relationship. International Figure Skating Magazine from earlier this year with Meryl/Charlie on the cover has a comprehensive interview with them in which he talks about how complicated their relationship is and how they cannot define it. He also specifically says that it is NOT a brother/sister relationship. And I've heard him say it in tv interviews as well. The only person who stated in Meryl's package that they were like brother/sister was Brooke Castile, who also used to be employed by DWTS producers as a pro on the now defunct Skating With the Stars. I can tell you Meryl/Charlie fans were in uproar Monday night about that comment because it isn't true. Plus Maks is not the first person to elicit chemistry from her, Charlie is. They are the very best of friends and if you watch interviews with them, you'll see that they act like more like a married couple than Charlie does with his girlfriend. That is why people say they have such strong chemistry as they know each other better than anyone else does. The Stephen Colbert interview with them post Olympics is another good example to watch.

Dancing With The Stars is a reality show but it is also well storyboarded and scripted. The producers know on Day 1 who they want in the final. The final results may not be rigged but the producers know how to manipulate the fan vote so that it leans a certain way. They do this with the packages and in the cases of when the fan vote doesn't sway as planned, the judges get involved. Hence the lowballing of Candace on Monday night to insure she was third. In the case of Meryl/Maks, practically every one of their packages was about Maks and his lack of a win or a supposed relationship between him and Meryl. That's what they felt appealed to the demographic watching the show and it certainly got people to vote just like constantly mentioning Amy's handicap did. Was there ever a week where Amy's legs were not mentioned? In Season 10, when Evan Lysacek and Anna Trebunskaya were rehearsing the freestyle dance, he made her cry. The package ended with her sitting on the floor crying. People felt sorry for her and next thing you know, Nicole Scherzinger won. They do this all the time--either interview people who suit their agenda or they heavily edit the packages to sway a vote a certain way. That is exactly what they did with Meryl's package on Monday.
 
Amen to the manipulations! I fervently hope the show doesn't start including a lot of hip-hop! I finally had to stop watching "So You Think You Can Dance" for this reason. And I miss Kat Deeley!
 
Oh, I agree that Meryl & Charlie are fabulous together on ice. They just do not make any mistakes, know each other very well. And I would guess their relationship IS a complicated one, but is not a romantic one.
To tell the truth, thruout the season, I did not pay all that much attention to the interviews. And I will say that I never voted for either of the top two finalists until after the finals on Monday night.
I do think it unfair that the show no longer tells the percentage of viewer votes that go to each contestant. And the why was I knew those two top couples were going to get a ton of votes, but I did think that Meryl, from week 1, was going to win it. She was clearly already the best, the most graceful, the most in tune with her partner.
Viewers have long said that on Dancing With the Stars, the stars are the pro dancers, not the ones brought in, who at times, are little known actors, singers, etc. LOL
all the so called reality shows are scripted in some way. After all, they have to reduce hours and hours of filmed footage to fit into one hour, in fact less than an hour, since so many commercials. Survivor suffered a lot from this, and they no longer have the numbers watching they used to.
 
I may be wrong but I think the original intent of Dancing was to take stars with minimal dance experience and teach them to dance. If that is still the case then neither Meryl nor Charlie should have been on the show. They are ice DANCERS. They already have musicality, fluidity of movement and know how to pick up choreography very easy. And lets not forget Derek helped them with the Olympic dance. Yes I know they had ice skaters before, but not ice dancers. There is a big difference.

Of course she was the best dancer. I think they let Maks have her because he is a big baby and wanted to win. I mean did you see when they won. It was all about him. Give me a break. I think Amy should have one and Candace was great for a non-dancer.

edited to enlarge font....JS
 
The show has had MANY contestants with something of a dance background, over the years/seasons. They would not have a professional dancer, per se, is my guess, but there are those who have some background, whether it is tap, ballet perhaps as kids, or who knows. Even those who dance well......it is not the same.And Couples ice dancing is very, very different than this dancing.
This kind of dancing requires very different holds, feet movements, head placements, etc. I used to watch the pro competitions on PBS, and very definitely these are much different standards, rules, etc. than other dancing. We have all heard the judges about not keeping heels down, or keeping the butt tight, shoulders straight, head turned a certain way, etc. Some dances require you be in a hold with your partner at all times. I remember Apolo Ohno talking of how hard it was for him because on skates you move very differently than on a dance floor.
 
That is what I mean about dance in their backgrounds somehow. A LOT of the contestants have had that. The show runs into a big problem when they try and get contestants, it means 8-10 week commitment. Rehearsals go for 5-8 hrs every single day. There are costume decisions, fittings, hair, makeup, etc. etc. So, the time commitment is necessary. And then there are the health concerns So the contestants have to be able to devote the time, the concentration, etc. And just look now.....it used to be one dance each day in the first seasons, and now they are doing team dances in addition to their partner one, and group dances as well. I give them all a great deal of credit.
 
Danica McKellar also had years of ballroom training yet except for Abby Lee Miller, it was not mentioned once this season. If we're suggesting that anyone with dance experience shouldn't be on the show, well that eliminates her, Nicole Scherzinger, etc. Personally, I think Nicole was a much bigger ringer than Meryl.

The only ballroom training Meryl and Charlie have had was regarding their specific ice dance number. So they had Quickstep training to prepare for this past season's short dance. they have not trained in every one of the dance types on this show. And only Charlie had a quickstep.
 
There was a few things I didn't like about this season. I felt like they were trying to really commercialize the dancing with the music and dance routines. I don't mind hearing the newest music but I don't feel that it fits with a particular type of dance. I also felt they were introducing different types of dance that are not ballroom. You do not see Contemporary dance in ballroom competitions. I don't believe even Jazz is a dance in ballroom either. They should keep it strictly ballroom, devote only 1 week to the other non-ballroom dance styles. I also felt it was overkill with having a guest judge every single week when in past seasons maybe only 1 week had a guest judge. Many of the guest judges have no relevant dance experience. Would be nice to have a real pro ballroom dancer or judge guest for a week or 2.
 
I wondered about the introduction of dances that I had not ever seen in regular ballroom competition shows. What about those "fusion" dances? Are those done in regular ballroom competition?
I do realize, though, that the show is trying varying things to keep the show from getting boring for the audience. But how many injuries have we seen the last several seasons, in comparison to NONE for the first several??? Plus the contestants who have had to drop out because of problems that develop or aggravate a condition they have.
 
What's the deal with those ugly hang-down pants some of the male dancers are wearing? Do I need a new wardrobe?
 
Now, this is truly SEXY....

merylmaks.jpg
 
Oh, wow, I know a gal who works trade shows for her business. And yesterday, who is there but Maks!! She posted a pic on Facebook, said he even gave her a spin. LOL. No idea where this was, she does travel places for these. She was walking on cloud 9.
 
One of Maks' dance schools is about 10 minutes from me. I took a Latin seminar with him and Tony after the 2010 season. I thought Maks was a sweetheart and I thought Tony was exactly the same as he comes across on tv. Needless to say, next time I'll only be taking a class with Maks. Possibly Val too.
 
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