So not too long ago, ABC aired several installments of a “live” (for the East Coast, apparently nobody out there likes to stay up late, thanks guys) celebrity dance reality show called “Dancing with the Stars“. Everyone laughed – “HA HA! What a silly idea. Clearly someone is off their rocker.” Myself included.
Cut to a few episodes into the series and an approving opinion from my mother – I’m sitting infront of the television rooting for Kelly Monaco (of General Hospital) and Joey McIntyre (a man I loved so dearly when I was 10 years old), two of the stars that were competing in the show. Ok so it was nifty. A reality show no doubt, but people were learning how to dance. It’s not as easy as plugging your nose and diving face first into a bowl of worms.
Alright, perhaps that’s not that easy either. But it doesn’t take great skill or a lot of brain power.
Back to the show. Apparently the first round of dancing, Monaco and her partner did horribly. She was at the bottom on the score chart. However, two things started to happen. One, she listened to the judges and practiced harder, thus improving her posture, movement, etc. Two, she has a lot of fans backing her. They backed her so much they voted in… and boy did they vote. That was one of the key elements to this show. The judges would vote and take into consideration a percentage of votes from the national audience.
Now, Kelly wasn’t the only one standing out among the stars. Rachel Hunter was doing wonderfully, virtually neck and neck with John O’Hurley. O’Hurley, if you need any bells to be rung, played J Peterman on Seinfeld. Tall man, white hair, deep voice. That guy.
He danced great too. And if you weren’t voting for Monaco – you were voting for O’Hurley. Those are the two it came down to. The judges clearly loved O’Hurley and his dancing partner. They danced beautifully, he had charm and was clearly enjoying what he was doing. The judges, didn’t love Monaco at first but as she improved, they began to really admire what she was doing.
Anyway – to make a long story somewhat longer… The last dance was whatever they wanted to do – and in that dance, O’Hurley and his partner picked a “simple” dance, one they’d done before and had charmed the pants off everyone with. It was comfortable. Monaco and her partner decided to be daring. Monaco insisted her partner to throw her around as much as possible. She’s a small person, this was easy for her partner to do. But it still took hours of new practicing to nail every piece of the dance. In the end, Monaco and her partner won the contest.
Whoa you should have seen the ABC boards after this. Many, many people were upset. They claimed ABC had rigged the show, having their employee win the contest for more PR. My opinion was that she had earned it. You get thrown around and see if you can land how you’re supposed to. You get put down in front of millions of people about how you can’t dance worth a bean and see how it makes you feel. Will it empower you, or will it crush you? I think they both did great and frankly I was at odds who would actually win.
Well, all of this nonsense was behind us – or so we thought.
First, in a move that was completely stupid ABC decided to push a reaaally lame (see title of this post) plot onto the character that Monaco plays on General Hospital. She has to dance! Not only will she be putting her own dancing shoes on, the guy she has to dance with is a new character played by some guy who was on Australia’s version of the “Dancing with the Stars” show. While it’s nice to hear the voice and the guy is pretty cute – the story is still super lame – even hardcore fans are in an uproar over it.
And just when we thought it might be over soon…ABC pulls another one on us.
There will be a dance-off A DANCE OFF. ABC.. ABC.. why.. why must you milk this? Do you REALLY need this as your PR ploy? Just move on and have another season of the show.
This is where I rub my temples and request a stiff drink to end the day.
More: E! Online, San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post
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