I have to admit I haven't seen even one episode of the show, so I can't give my opinion on whether or not The Orlando Sentinel's Hal Boedeker is right when he says that there is something wrong with the show (he uses the word "disgusting" to describe the finale). He wonders why winner Kelly Monaco and dance partner Alec Mazo got perfect scores - the only perfect scores given out on the entire run of the show - and on the last episode no less. I did see the highlights on the news, and you could see runner-up John O'Hurely wasn't too pleased.
Any Dancing with the Stars fans out there? What do you think?
[via TV Tattle]















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-09-2005 @ 4:27PM
Josie Comphel said...
I am sorry, if you haven't been watching the show then you shouldn't have an opinion. I watched everyone of them and I say, hoorah! to Kelly and Alec. You know sometimes underdogs do win and I think even I can dance with John but would hardly keep up the steps with Alec...I think you just should just be a good sport...and if you want to voice an opinion, why not just watch the show...And so what if they got 10, 10, 10 they were hot, hot, hot as I thought they were throughout the show...did you make any comments about the way the judges talked so rudely to Kelly...now that was not deserved but the 10's were.
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7-09-2005 @ 4:28PM
Josie Comphel said...
I am sorry, if you haven't been watching the show then you shouldn't have an opinion. I watched everyone of them and I say, hoorah! to Kelly and Alec. You know sometimes underdogs do win and I think even I can dance with John but would hardly keep up the steps with Alec...I think you just should just be a good sport...and if you want to voice an opinion, why not just watch the show...And so what if they got 10, 10, 10 they were hot, hot, hot as I thought they were throughout the show...did you make any comments about the way the judges talked so rudely to Kelly...now that was not deserved but the 10's were.
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7-09-2005 @ 6:38PM
Bill Malicia said...
I admire your honesty about not seeing the show.
It is clear that Hal Boedeker didn't like the scoring system of "DWTS". That is His problem and the remedy for him is to find the backing to put his own show on the air. This link is
to the scoring system. Maybe Mr. Boedecker should read this before he starts writing a critique concerning a topic of which he clearly doesn't understand. As for the perfect scores that seem to trouble him deeply, My feeling is that they were well deserved. Kelly and Alec did their first routine, a Samba, which was technically superior to the prior performance in week 4, it lacked the same intensity. From the First steps of their Free Style routine they tore up the floor. As Head Judge Len Goodman remarked, "That was the performance of the entire series", and it clearly was. Also, no one knows what the final tally was when the viewer votes were factored in. What type of cheese would You like with that whine Mr. Boedecker?
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7-09-2005 @ 7:27PM
hdtv forum said...
Here's what's wrong with the show. It's called "Dancing with the Stars" but the show doesn't have any stars. It's just a bunch of washed-up quasi-celebrities.
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7-10-2005 @ 1:45PM
Sugar said...
John is a better dancer than Kelly, but John doens't have a boobies, boobies always win over talent in reality tv these days.
Plus - soap stars have a huge and loyal fan following, alas, I was so sad to see Rachel Hunter leave, but not surprised.
Relying on an audience vote really skewed this whole show, I mean how segmented would 'fans' have to be....and does Joey and Evander have fans that would watch a dancing show?
Plus, Trista????? A star?????? What in the world is my favorite passtime (tv) coming to????
I love the show, I loved John, I loved Rachel, Kelly was plucky and had boobies that just wouldn't quit, overall it was clearly a summer success.
I just hope they have more pull to get some interesting people to don their dancing shoes next time around - plus, no audience vote, plus don't fix the judge vote for drama, plus, better song choices, please.
Maybe it wasn't as great a show...or the rest of the network landscape is really dire, if this was my favorite show of the summer so far.
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7-11-2005 @ 12:03AM
SHS said...
I gotta admit Kelly was hot.
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7-10-2005 @ 8:30PM
Janell Cech said...
I enjoyed the program(s) and probably would have scored some of the couples a little differently from the judges. My main concern was the perfect score for Kelly and Alec on the finale. There is no way they should have received three 10s as she hit on her knees at the end of their dance. They were a great couple, showing improvement almost weekly, but no way of deserving that final score from the judges. Seems as though the judges joined forces on that call.
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7-10-2005 @ 11:10PM
Joe Taylor Jr. said...
My wife interrupted our vacation last week to watch this, so the two episodes on Wednesday were the first time I'd seen the series.
Under the scoring system, if Kelly had not received perfect scores in the Freestyle, the final scores would have been tied at 3-3, instead of 4-2. If they had used fan votes as a tiebreaker, she would have won anyway, regardless of how well she danced that night.
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7-10-2005 @ 11:15PM
Katherine said...
I agree with Hal 100%. People were voting for Kelly and her partner because they couldn't appreciate true ballroom dancing, only club dancing. It's like people who think Top 40 music is better than classical, or that today's popular singers have better voices than trained opera singers. However, this show was advertised as *ballroom dancing*, not club dancing. As such, there is absolutely NO WAY an honest person could say that Kelly was a better BALLROOM dancer than John! Also, the show was obviously rigged -- even if one believes that Kelly's final dance was better than John's (although to do that would require you to turn a blind eye to several misteps and 1 near and 1 actual drop!), there is no way it deserved 3 10s when not a single 10 had been given out prior to that -- not even for the near flawless foxtrot and quickstep by John and Charlotte.
You could even tell by how the announcers kept playing up the "can she come from behind to win" angle for the whole evening. This was nothing but ABC's promotion of its own soap opera. I and everyone else I've spoken with were disgusted!
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7-11-2005 @ 12:05PM
Cat said...
Considering Kelly Monaco and her partner had a major mistake at the end of their last dance, I agree that the perfect scores are suspicious (she nearly falls flat on her face when her partner sets her down after that final lift). If I could spot it, there's no way the judges could have NOT noticed it. Considering the number of lifts Monaco and her partner did for their last program, their dance looked better suited for figure skating (the professional was literally supporting the celebrity). I think people should look at the fact that the only ABC connected "star" one the title on ABC's show.
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7-11-2005 @ 9:16PM
Mina said...
I never actually thought That Kelly Monaco would win. She was NOT one of my favorites. So it definitely surprised me when i found out she won. John O'Hurley and Charlotte were in my opinion, the couple who would have won.
P.S. If you think something is fishy, maybe we could do something about it.
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7-11-2005 @ 5:36PM
Leslie said...
How odd that the winner of this ABC series was the star of another ABC series. As someone who has spent their entire life dancing, I can honestly say that not only did Kelly Monaco's last dance not deserve 3 10s , she was still two steps short of awful. I know good drama when I see it, and there is nothing more dramatic than having the underdog heroine come back at the very end, needing a perfect score to win, and getting it. Couldn't have been written any better!
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7-11-2005 @ 6:41PM
Jessy Scholl said...
I hate to tell you this though, I was listening to Fox Sports Radio late last night after a baseball game and the host was harping against the show. Of course I never watched it and Dancing was on ABC. Kelly Monoco is an star on an ABC soap while John O'Hurley co-starred on Seinfeld which was an NBC program. Do the Math. This makes Olympic pairs figure skating in 2002 look like a picnic compared to this. In fact, if this was an olympic sport during the olympics and on NBC, this would be a major brewhaha no matter the nation.
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7-13-2005 @ 12:28PM
zanne said...
Look, Kelly even admits she scraped her knee. She worked hard, took constructive criticism and improved upon her dancing. The public voted and Kelly and Alec won. She has a lot of fans...it wasn't rigged, we just have a lot of sour grapes or jealously out there....More power to her!....and if I had a body like that I would show it off too! As an Orlando Resident, The Orlando Sentinel's Hal Boedeker TV opinions don't mean squat!
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8-04-2005 @ 5:27PM
MILLY MILLER said...
I agree that the whole show was circumspect. Kelly was the only full time ABC employee on the show. The fact that she won, should immediately put up warning signs in a persons brain. Three 10's from the judges doesn't make sense. Even if they liked her freestyle better than John's, they should have been judging the dance from a professional standpoint. John's dance was just as complicated as Kelly's, but Kelly's dance had more "in your face" acrobatics than John's. Regardless, those marks given to her were way off base and John should have won due to having everything in his dances that was required, and doing them with grace and flair.
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7-19-2005 @ 10:57PM
Tom Hawk said...
I taped Kelly's final dance and then reviewed it carefully in slow motion. I think I see now why she received three 10's from the judges. When she did her (partner assisted) back flip, legs flapping in the air, and concluded it by bouncing her knees off the floor, she managed to suppress any easily discernable scream of pain.
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7-22-2005 @ 11:53PM
Rilly said...
This show was for BEST DANCER not most improved...kelly did not deserve to win. As a dance instuctor and choreographer I was appalled at all the mistakes in her final dance-it was terrible, getting 10's was a farce.
The best dancers were by far John and Charlotte. Actually Joey and Ashley should have been in the final with John if it had been 'fair'.
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