Relax Dancing Fans: Castroneves' Win Was Supposed to Happen

I imagine the blogosphere is burning up this morning with fans complaining about Brazilian race car driver Helio Castroneves' surprise win on Tuesday night's finale of Dancing with the Stars.

Once Castroneves had finished his final dance last night, it was painfully obvious he couldn't match the power and grace of Spice Girl Melanie Brown, whose mastery of all the dance styles covered by the show has been awesome to behold.

So why isn't this critic complaining that he beat Brown when all the votes were totaled? (hint: It's not because this was a win I predicted)

As I explain in a story for today's newspaper, Dancing's voters seem to reward those who make the biggest transformation. And Scary Spice, as proficient as she has been, made a living for many years singing and dancing onstage. Castroneves, as a cute, charismatic neophyte, distinguished himself by plunging into the competition with gusto -- something the fans often reward.

Castroneves also lucked out because he aced Monday's night performances -- which sparked the audience votes leading to his win. Had the fan vote been based on Tuesday night's final dances, I think Mel B.'s perfect mambo might have wiped the floor with the indy 500 champ.

As it was, I do think the judges punked out a bit by giving both finalist couples perfect scores for their final dances, leaving the decision mostly to the audience vote. Even though Brown ate up the dance floor in her final performance, the experts turned away when their expertise was most needed -- likely to avoid looking like spoilers.

In the end, I was just happy that Marie Osmond got cut 30 minutes into last night's finale.  Between the fainting, the endless grinning and the non-stop jokes about her age, Osmond was wearing out her TV welcome faster than Rosie O'Donnell at a Young Republicans' dinner.

Comments

[Ron]

Eric,

Would you be watching crap like this & American Idol if you weren't being paid to?

[Eric Deggans]

Of course not. But I would be watching crap like ER and Law & Order: special Victims Unit.

Everybody has TV shows they love that might not be considered the best creative output television has to offer. And because, right now, Dancing with the Stars is TVs highest-rated show, TV criticsm ust pay attetion to major events on it -- even we don't like it personally.

And I gotta say, fluffy as it is, I don't think it's mearly as destructive to society as relaity shows such as Trading Spouses, COPS or Dr. Phil...

[Ron]

I've gotta agree with you about the reality shows, but it seems like TV is just continually moving more towards the gutter. I recently heard about a new VH1 show about B-list actors in rehab. How much lower can they sink?

(Full disclosure: The one reality show that I enjoyed was Airline, because I travel a lot and regularly see these same morons in every airport.)