Mario was robbed & Karina was pissed. That really sucked that you knew who won beforehand. Us lucky east coasters. I'll miss your recaps of this show B-side. You really entertained. Next time around there will be more cheesy D listers for Cheryl to dance with. When Carrie said it was all about entertaining not just technique, I thought Jerry Springer should have been in the finals.

Yes! Year of the Gator, baby!

Nothing compares to your glorious captions, B-Side. "Holy Motherf*@king shit!!! They're awesome!"

"Second place is first on a long line of LOSERS!"

excellent recap tho i admit to fast forwarding alittle myself.

Methinks Mario "i'm just an actor" and Karina have a serious future in professional ballroom dancing. But the public chose heart over cold profesionalism and faux modesty. Now, where's Juliette Prowse to welcome Mario with open arms.

btw..i hope you stocked up on the canned goods. Eva was right! Santa Maria!!

mario was totally robbed. i mean, the man is as good as most professionals. the judges even said so. how does that NOT win? i know- emmitt is popular (and don't think that i'm anti-emmitt). but mario deserved it.
and in my opinion, cheryl is going to get stuck with next year's tucker carlson/master p/frankstein "star." she's won 2 years in a row? it's time for her to get screwed by her partner. and i don't mean like karina and maks did.

i wonder if karina got a neck tuck.

Count me in as #11 in your scientific survey . . . Yahoo ruined it for me too. They have done that in the past with other reality shows, the time I remember most specifically is when Chip and Kim won on TAR. I should know better and avoid the computer on all finale nights.

Did you catch how much Botox there was in Elizabeth Berkley's forehead? And here I thought she was about my age, does that mean it's time for me to head down to McNamara/Troy and tell them what I don't like about myself?

EMMITT AND CHERYL!!! EMMITT AND CHERYL!!! EMMITT AND CHERYL!!!
WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

I actually had to record the finale. (And yes! I am unlucky to have a tivo! sad! :( ) But I actually liked it. I will admit I wanted to fast forward during emmitt's encore dance, but I paid more attention to the audience than the actual dance! First off, there was an old lady in the background that was really getting her boogie on. (And she only did it for emmitt! I guess mc hammer moves her!) Then towards the end of the dance, there was a bootleg john travolta from saturday night fever. Hilarious! hahaha

And yes! I will admit that I also got teary-eyed when Cheryl and Emmitt was saying their good-byes. You could just tell that they were sincere & they truly cared for each other like they were family. On the other hand, Mario and Karina acted like they were ready for the cameras to go so they can jump each other's bones!

Overall, great season! And great recaps, b-side!

Ohyeah! One last thing--Cheryl won back-to-back championships in ONE year!

I am #12 in the scientific survey - but I heard the results on the radio while driving home from work.

I thought I was safe listening to sports radio, but alas....I got the spoiler.

Humpf!

#13 in the survey...my crazy gf called to tell me she had seen it on the web. We had a small wager - she had Emmitt so the bitch was calling to gloat.

Thanks for the great season of recaps b-side.

hb

It should have been about who was the better dancer, but in the end, the more "popular" person won. A lot of people seemed to have issue with Mario's supposed previous dance training, but I don't recall such a hoopla being made last season over Stacey Kiebler's ballet classes as a child, or the fact that Drew more than likely worked with a choreographer regularly during his boy ban days. I think in their case, the better dancer truly did win.

I don't know... I think Emmitt deserved it more.

We didn't get a chance to watch the final dances until yesterday and I wasn't impressed with Mario. Even my husband, who usually picks the person I don't like just to spite me, said Mario just didn't entertain him. His dances looked jerky and, as has been with all his dances, I couldn't help feel AC Slater being revived in Prime Time ABC.

Also, Mario has previous dance training. He SHOULD be at a level of a professional and he wasn't. Add on top of that his overall fakeness and the fact that he couldn't go 10 weeks without banging his partner... I'm glad he didn't win.

Whew! That felt good!

I was so fired up about the finals, I had to rant before you even got a chance to get your recap done, so my initial comments are at the bottom of Tuesday night's recap. But to recap my rant (is ther an award for the most amounts of time the word 'recap' is used in a recap?):

BOO HISS!

on to the new rant items-

The smurfy Cheryl was wearing so much body glitter I was worried about the flammability factor under the lights.

Samatha is an idiot.

Emmitt is adorable, but not trophy-worthy.

Karina is a bee-yatch, but she and her friend-with-benefits deserved the trophy, even though she was an ungracious loser.

Mario - well, he's just the best dancer of the series. Period.

Carrie- needs to go do some dancing somewhere so she doesn't need to keep doing it at her podium when she's supposed to be giving commentary.

Len - needs an enema or something.

Bruno - Love the guy.

That's it for this season of dancing. Not sure which I'll mis most-the show or the recaps. Oh, wait, I know. Definitely the recaps.

Oh damn, the end. Your recaps were the best! Ah shizzzzzzzz. And that last caption was genius.

I wanted Mario to win b/c I thought he was the best dancer, although I'm not upset that Emmit did. They played up the romance between Mario and Karina so much that I hope he IS hitting that! They could always go home and watch porn together. Sarah can give them some tips. :)

Don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Carrie Ann is dating Artem from the 1st season of So You Think You Can Dance:

http://people.aol.com/people/article/0,26334,1545261,00.html

The judges had a huge double standard againt Mario!
Emmitt got judged on his likability and the way "he lit up the room" and the way he "entertained" the crowd. Mario got judged on rules and technique and "not enjoying it enough". Has anybody seen ballroom professionals? They have a face of concentration that would put a chess player to shame.

At times Ms. Inava seemed to have Mandingo fantasies of a big black man with a huge ... Emitt seemed to obliged by wearing sleeveless shirts with bands around his biceps; very tribal (Like that, Inava?).

Bottom line. The judges left it up to the public and the better dancer lost. Considering that Ballroom dancers wanted to have their "sport" on the Olympics just like Ice Dancing, they should be concerned if this is the way professional judges work in their field. Karina had a right to be pissed.

oh, please, all you cat-loving spinsters. quit whining. this isn't a professional competition--it's a frickin' 21st century lawrence welk.

emmitt was a revelation. the guy is about 10 years older and 60 pounds heavier than mario. he played running back in the NFL for over 10 years, which means his body has been through more abuse than any of us can even imagine--it's remarkable that he can walk unaided, much less that he can dance like frickin' twinkletoes. the dude rocked it, every night. he took it seriously, but he never looked like he wasn't having a blast. furthermore, even in retirement, emmitt is the only legitimate 'star' on the show. DWTS is a huge career boost for d-listers and 'where are they now?'s like mario lopez and joey lawrence, but for emmitt, it's just another chance to excel. i'm a lifelong gator-hater and 'skins fan (die, cowboys), and i still love the guy, which is saying something.

That ballroom dancing sure is dumb if the judges award points for popularity. I thought that was the audience's job.

Anyways I am glad Emmitt won. Disappointed about Karina, but she should have been better prepared for the outcome. And Mario's getting a trophy from Mom anyways.

Yay Emmitt!

Can't believe all the moaning about it here. Even if I was rooting for Mario, I can't imagine being annoyed with the outcome. Emmitt was good!

Regular ballroom dancing assumes a level playing field, i.e., all contestants have both natural talent and ample training. Obviously Dancing with the Stars doesn't work that way. Otherwise just give the award to Mario first show and be done with it.

Poor karina- she seems to be really into mario and we know its just a matter of hours before he dumps her

Anyone planning on catching the tour? I have to go support Joey McIntyre, even though the closest is still 5 hours away...

Karina was about to burst into tears when Samantha was bugging them about their "future". She looked like she knew she was about to get dumped.

right on, jack.

I was rooting for Mario since day one (how could you deny those dimples & nice firm butt???) I agree wholeheartedly that he was the best dancer when it came to technique, but frankly what ruined it for me in the end was that c*** Karina - she annoyed me. I'm glad Emmitt won!

firstly..to jack...mario and emmitt are only 4(yes 4) years apart! I know emmitt looks way older but thats not the case, he's 37 and mario's 33...that being said emmitt still has had a rougher physical life than mario. Honestly, I think that Monique should have been in the final 2 w/ mario and that emmitt wasn't even that good to make it this far but whatever, what's done is done. On a side note, are Mario and Karina *really* together??? I get very strong gayvibes from Mario and my gaydar rarely pings in error! lol

I don't watch this show....well, OK I watched a few times when JERRY was on!

But anyway, I just wanted to comment on the "Dancing with the Stars" cheeeeeez-a-riffic disco ball! That thing looks like something made in some kid's high school drama class!

LOVE IT!

In my opinion, the best dancer left 5 weeks ago when Willa was given the boot by an ignorant viewing audience.

If this were a competition judged upon talent alone -- the final two would have been both Mario and Willa. Joey, Emmitt and Monique would have been among the top five. But this IS NOT a competition judged on talent . . . it is one judged on popularity. This is highly apparent since the voting on the show begins as soon as the show starts . . . you don't even have to watch the first couple dance before you vote for your favorite. How ridiculous is that, seriously?

Saying this, I am glad that Emmitt beat the over-confident Mario simply because I did NOT like how Mario walked into the ballroom to watch Cheryl and Emmitt rehearse. Mario found out what E&C were dancing to Sir Duke and he also found out Emmitt's weaknesses on the dance floor and decided to build his dance routine AROUND that. Emmitt simply danced while Mario tried to impress the judges with moves that Emmitt couldn't do. One danced offensively and the other defensively -- I didn't like Mario's approach to this and I think it hurt him. He should have been less concerned with what Emmitt was bringing to the dancefloor and more concerned with how he was going to impress the judges on his own merits.

The better man -- maybe not the better dancer -- won this competition.