TVSquad

With the finals upon us, we call in our favorite ballroom pro for one last chat about the goings on down at the DWTS studio. This week Jonathan gives us his thoughts on the new cha cha faceoff, as well as the freestyle performances from the remaining couples.

He also offers up his pick to take home the big mirror ball. Getting to some viewer questions we talk about the music, the judges comments, and get an update on those future plans he hinted at earlier in the season. All that, and more, after the jump.

Brett: Well now, that was a pretty darn good show tonight.

Jonathan: That was a great final.

Brett: The thing that occurred to me while watching it was that the fans really got it right putting these three couples into the finals.

Jonathan: Yeah, I would definitely say all three finalists deserve to be there. It really was a great, competitive, final. You could see all three of the couples had been determined for a long time. They'd worked for it, and all their hard work has paid off.

Brett: I would agree, and I thought the addition of the cha cha faceoff was great. Because we don't usually get something where we can compare the three couples side by side like that.

Jonathan: I thought the cha cha faceoff was a brilliant idea on the part of the show. It's actually interesting, people that have only seen Dancing With The Stars don't realize that normal ballroom dance competitions, when you have a final, the six couples are dancing on the floor against each other, at the same time, to the same music. So as a live audience you can sit there and look at them and compare the difference. Now that doesn't work so well on TV because obviously they can't film all the couples at the same time. But I think this gave the judges and the audience a chance to directly compare the differences in each of the couples. I really think that was good, giving the audience a chance to, dance-wise, say this couple out-performed that couple, or did a better job.

Brett: And with that, I thought the scoring was pretty much right on. Kristi & Mark were so intricate and polished, they should have been ahead.

Jonathan: With Kristi & Mark, their freestyle was absolutely amazing. They were synchronized. They were on time. They were fast. They were interesting. They just did a brilliant job.

Brett: I thought a big part of that was that she did a great job playing the part. It seemed like a more relaxed, more fun-loving Kristi than we've seen in some of her past performances.

Jonathan: As I've said before, in order to win this competition, you have to show improvement. And I really thought Kristi showed improvement as far as going for it and coming out of her shell. Not being so emotionally quiet and showing the love of dance. The energy on the floor, you could really feel it out there. She really did a good job.

Brett: The only negative I had for their performance was that I thought they may have gone overboard with a couple of the lifts. It looked to me like it kind of broke the flow of their performance as they set up to get into a couple of the lifts. But that was a minor thing.

Jonathan: The final dance should just be the most fun, go-for-it dance of the whole season. And they really did that with their number. You just enjoyed every moment of it. It was brilliant.

Brett: Getting to Jason & Edyta, that idea fits their too. It was just hugely fun with him pulling off her dress and her diving off the stage. It was just a spectacle.

Jonathan: Definitely. Jason and Edyta, what a great looking couple. Both of them are just stunning to look at and are so in shape. It was just a fun routine. I think the improvement you can see in Jason is that he was competing and working hard, but you could see he was having fun. You got to see his personality come out a little more and he really got loose and kind of shook off some of that stiffness we've seen in the past. He really boogied down in a way. And I have to say, a couple of the lifts they did were pretty spectacular. Him being 6'6" and holding Edyta up straight over his head in a star lift, that's pretty amazing.

Brett: I thought the judges had the scoring right. It was just unfortunate. He probably would have scored better had the faceoff been the foxtrot, but those are just the breaks.

Jonathan: It's very interesting that the week before when they pulled the random dances out of the hat and Jason got foxtrot and pasa doble. He could not have gotten two better dances for himself. The foxtrot being probably his best dance of the whole show. He's just smooth and sophisticated. And of all the Latin dances, the pasa doble is the strongest one, and a big guy like him, it just shows him off perfect. So last week he really got lucky, whereas this week with the cha cha... Let's say with Kristi, who's 5'1", it's twice as hard for him to show that rhythm and that speed. And with Cristián being Latino and more used to using his hips, it was definitely a tougher one for Jason.

Brett: With Cristián & Cheryl, the one thing I didn't really agree with was the comments on their freestyle. I thought the scoring was fine, but it struck me as odd that the comments were so positive with the other two couples, but took on a bit of a negative tone for Cristián & Cheryl.

Jonathan: I feel a little bit torn, because as we look at the judges on the show we want them to judge the dancing and be critical if it's not good, and be positive if it is good. But I'm so respectful, and amazed with Cristián and what he's gone through. The fact that his left arm is pretty much useless. His routine, it's true it wasn't as difficult as Kristi's or Jason's, but he did a fantastic job with it. Just to pull off some of those lifts and those moves really was amazing. I felt like the judges could have given him a lower score than the others, but maybe honored him more for the work and the effort that he put into it.

Brett: So, after seeing all of that, it's hard to predict because you just have no idea what the fans are going to do, but are you picking Kristi to win it all?

Jonathan: Well, Kristi has been my pick since the beginning of the show. But, obviously, we don't know what's going to happen. I think sometimes the risk factor there is like what happened with Sabrina last season. People might look at Kristi and think "She got two perfect 30s, she was the best going into the competition. I'm going to give Jason or Cristián a vote because they tried so hard." Then all of a sudden the votes get switched around, and we all know that the voters have the biggest weight in the competition, so you never know.

Brett: I guess that's part of the attraction of it. I just have no idea what is going to happen tomorrow night.

Jonathan: Yes, tomorrow night is going to be one great show. Not only seeing everybody come back to dance again, but seeing who is going to be first, second, and third. All three couples are very deserving, for one reason or another, to win this trophy.

Brett: Sure, I really won't have a problem with any of them winning it. I think it's been a great season overall.

Jonathan: Absolutely.

Brett: Getting to our last set of reader questions, the one that keeps popping up, this week from Nerissa and the green eyed gal, is people wondering about those future plans you hinted at earlier in the season. Do you have anything to announce?

Jonathan: Oh, not yet, no.

Brett: So, should we keep an eye on your website looking for any announcement?

Jonathan: Yes, we are redoing our website now, so we'll get that finished soon.

Brett: Nerissa also sends along wishes of good luck for Anna at Blackpool.

Jonathan: Yes, Anna leaves for the biggest competition in the world starting Friday. It's a week long event in England and all the couples from all around the world enter that. It's absolutely huge.

Brett: We've touched on the music a couple times before, but I don't think we've had it from this angle. Martha wants to know how the songs are chosen. Are those just picked by the producers and you get what you get, or do you have some choice in it.

Jonathan: We all get to request songs that we would like to dance to, but ultimately they have to get cleared. ABC has to get the rights to play each song, and they want to have a nice mix of some older tunes and some newer tunes, and things like that. Ultimately, we get a song handed to us and whether we like it or not we have to use it, but we do get to turn in requests.

Brett: Craig has a question about scoring that goes back a couple of weeks ago where, I think it was Len, complained that he didn't like the back and forth in Kristi & Mark's number. He wants to know if it's fair that she gets marked down for something that was out of her control, Mark's choreography. For me, I look at the show as being as much a competition for the pros as it is the celebrities, so they have to be scored as a couple.

Jonathan: Yeah, absolutely. You don't look at the choreography and say "Hey, Mark choreographed a great routine for her, so that's not fair because it's not her because he did such a great job on the choreography she shouldn't get marked up for it." And also with the judges, each one of them are different. Len definitely doesn't like some of the hip hop moves, whereas someone else might love them and that could be the selling point of why they're going to mark them. Each of the pros works with the celebrity they have, and the ability they have, to show them off the best. So, it definitely is a team.

Brett: I think that kind of gets back to how long you've been involved with the show. Ya know, I've watched it from the beginning so I've grown attached to certain pros. Like, for example, I'm the biggest Edyta fan, and I would be thrilled if she won it just because I've followed her through all of it. So most of the time I'm just as involved, and in the case of some of the celebrities, I'm more interested in what's going to happen with the pros than the celebrities.

Jonathan: That's great to hear, because the pros on the show do so much work. Especially Edyta, who is the only pro to have been on all six seasons. It would be great to see her win. She would definitely be deserving of that.

Brett: We've talked before about the differences between what the male celebrities have to do and what the female celebrities have to do. Tom has an idea to get around that by going to a format where one series is all male celebrities, and the next is all female celebrities. It actually could make sense, given the two series in each TV season. Personally, I kind of like the mix.

Jonathan: I think it's always interesting seeing the differences of the male and female celebrities and what people come up with. And I imagine they'll always keep it that way.

Brett: Emily has a question about judge's comments, wondering if after the critiques that we see on the live show, do you ever get a chance to talk to them about any of it, or is what we see live the extent of it.

Jonathan: Do we get to talk to the judges more? No. We really don't have any more contact with them other than what you see on the show.

Brett: So, tomorrow night we have everyone doing their favorite dances. Is there anything in particular that you are hoping to see?

Jonathan: The most exciting thing is going to be seeing who wins the competition. It really has been a great season. It's kind of like a school reunion. You get to see all your friends and all the competitors back again. That's going to be really nice. Adam Carolla, I don't know what number he's going to do, but I hope it's the one on the unicycle. I hope we see Penn slide across the floor on his stomach. The little kind of trademark moves that everybody did that people remember, and laugh, and like them for.

Brett: One more question that I was wondering about. Now that Dancing With The Stars is ending, I'll turn my attentions to So You Think You Can Dance and I was wondering if that's something that you watch, or are you a fan?

Jonathan: Definitely. I've had several friends that have been on it, some of the ballroom dancers. We pretty much all know each other, so it's great for me to see the success that a lot of them have had on the show. What I like about So You Think You Can Dance is that there are no celebrities involved. It's basically whatever they do on screen is how people perceive them and vote for them and it really is these young kids showing off their amazing talent.

Brett: That's the biggest thing for me with that show. I'm always amazed at the level of talent they are able to bring in every year.

Jonathan: Absolutely.

And with that we close the book on what was for me a very fun series of interviews. I would like to thank Jonathan one more time for taking the time to do these interviews with the site and wish him the best in all his upcoming projects. And finally, I'd like to thank all of the readers for stopping by and helping out with questions. It was all very fun and hopefully we'll get to do it all again in the fall.