Is Kelly’s Win Really That Bad?

Dancing w/ The Stars

By Guest Columnist | Thursday, July 28, 2005 | 8:58 am | 9 Comments

[by Guest Columnist Erica; you can read her blog at ihearttv.blogspot.com]

An article in today’s New York Times addresses the Dancing With the Stars judging controversy. If watching B-list actors prancing around isn’t your thing, you might not know that many viewers were “offended” when soap opera star Kelly Monaco beat out John O’Hurley, frequent Seinfeld guest star, for the win.

I can’t help but think that some DWTS fans are taking this a little too far. It’s not like there was a million dollars at stake. Kelly Monaco won A TROPHY. Sure, she’s getting a lot of acting offers now (including a potential guest-starring role on Desperate Housewives, according to E! Online’s Kristin) , but she’s not getting those offers because of her dancing ability—she’s getting them because her name is out there. And every article that mentions her undoubtedly also mentions J. Peterman, so maybe he (and his fans) can live with him not having that trophy in his garage.

The article also mentions that changes will be put into effect to prevent such a controversy in the future. One such change might be the addition of a second-night results show, like the one American Idol has. ABC admits that they hadn’t considered a second weekly show before, since they thought no one in his or her right mind would want to watch some has-beens and never-weres doing the fox trot. Oh how wrong they were.

9 Comments

  1. 1
    tv freak
    Posted July 28, 2005 at 1:48 pm

    you are right. Who the heck cares who wins? I think she did better on her second dance than any other dance that night anyway.

  2. 2
    Ashes
    Posted July 28, 2005 at 2:15 pm

    I thought that Kelly’s obviously flawed final dance shouldn’t have received a perfect score from all three judges and that John should have won for his series-long superior skills and style. I think the judges may have been told that Kelly was unbeatable due to her high soap-fan-voter totals and so they judged her perfect to create drama, knowing it didn’t matter to the results. She also probably got credit for being most improved while John was considered someone who was good all along and therefore his final performances weren’t as special. However, the fact that some people are still upset over it to the point of bombarding ABC with complaints is silly. It’s a reality show about less-than-B-list people dancing. Why haven’t these fans moved on to BB or even the consecutive re-airings of TAR on the Game Show Network?!!

  3. 3
    SurelyYouJest
    Posted July 28, 2005 at 2:19 pm

    I watched the last few episodes and it was OBVIOUS that the fix was in for beady-eyed kelly monaco. she practically FELL 3 times in her dance so for the judges to give her 3 10s when there had never been ONE 10 in the entire series was ludicrous. The ABC / General Hospital connection reeks!

    not that I care. . . . just saying.

  4. 4
    ha!
    Posted July 28, 2005 at 2:53 pm

    And to anyone who cares: I just found out last night that OLN is rerunning the first season of Survivor.

    Well, that, and I just saved a lot on my car insurance…

    ha!

  5. 5
    floopeygirl
    Posted July 28, 2005 at 4:20 pm

    The only reason all of these people are bent that Kelly and Alex won is because all any of the judges and commentators kept saying over and over and over and over again was that John & Charlotte would be the couple to beat .. and that is exactly what was done. Kelly is on a soap and prolly has a strong and loyal fan following who voted for her. As for him, it’s sour grapes. He prolly believed the judges when they said, ad nauseum ‘you are the couple to beat’ which was translated into ‘you’ve already won this’ by him and when that didn’t really happen, he snapped. Deal with it. She won a trophy that looked like it was from the movie Saturday Night Fever.

  6. 6
    Brian
    Posted July 28, 2005 at 7:37 pm

    BOO HOO…..someone had to win,someone had to lose…..GET OVER IT.Maybe if he hadn’t made those horrible I can only describe as “I’m costipated” looks so often while dancing,he’d have won.

  7. 7
    Ed
    Posted July 28, 2005 at 10:03 pm

    I propose that BB6 reverse all known protocols and decide in the end to just let Chenbot decide. She can choose anyone who appeared all season.

    Next, let’s have Randy choose the next AI, since his vote should have more “weight” than non-pounders.

    Then we get to have Jeff choose the Survivor winner.

    Rules exist, or they don’t. Letting Monaco win was precisely like having someone win an immunity/veto by being the slowest runner on the obsatacle course just because a judge liked her style better.

    No reality show can stand such betrayal and shouldn’t.

    It matters.

  8. 8
    erica
    Posted July 29, 2005 at 6:51 am

    I get what you’re saying, Ed, and I think you make a good point. I think in any situation where there’s judges (and judges who give official scores, not like Randy/Paula/Simon), there’s a possibility of complaints with the outcome.

    But I doubt this kind of thing will carry over to other shows–it seems like the producers realize that they need to change things.

  9. 9
    Ashes
    Posted July 29, 2005 at 7:37 am

    DWTS has announced that next time it will have a second night of a results show so that the public voting and judge’s scores and for the same dance, instead of using public voting from the previous week’s dance and the judge’s scores from that night’s dance. I guess they never figured this show would be a summer smash hit at the level it was, so they didn’t plan for a second American Idol-like results night each week. They may have assumed that one night of a dancing show per week was a long shot, and now they actually have a public demand for two nights!

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