Dancing With The Stars - Aussie Final This Sunday!

Being a ballroom dancer, I normally relish this time of year, since it is the Dancing with the Stars finale.

Not so much this year.

Instead I feel as though I am emerging white-knuckled from a ride on which I never asked to be placed. There have been so many deviations from the successful format, that many people are now starting to predict the demise of the show. Which, personally, I agree with. While the ratings last year were just as high as normal, Channel 7 seem to think that that is not enough. So lets see what has gone down this year:

Brynne Edelston

Brynne was the American that was married to an older wealthy man. We made many assumptions about her. Mostly she turned out to be sweet and so much more adult than we ever expected. While she couldn't dance, it turned out that she was voted off half way through the season, even though we all thought her rich husband would have a crew to keep her in phone votes (can anyone say 'Veruca Salt?')

Joshua Horner

Josh replaced Mark Wilson as the new judge this season. There appeared to be no reason to replace a judge who has ballroom experience and a strong fan base, but Channel 7 did anyway. Josh has LOADS of ballet and choreography experience, but no idea when it comes to ballroom dancing, which is why I created a facebook page in a bid to get Mark Wilson back on Dancing With The Stars. He actually referred to New Vogue steps as 'that free stuff.' He also admitted on the DWTS message boards that ballroom dancing is a social style and not disciplined like ballet. Needless to say he developed a lack of fans among the fans and judges alike.

Todd McKenney

Todd is the mean judge on DWTS. Josh, not being happy with only replacing one judge, tried to also claim this role. It resulted in some magnificent hissy fits from Todd. It also lead to Todd making more sense from a technical point of view than ever before.

'Stars'

Once again, there has been plenty of complaints about the lack of 'real' celebrities on the show. I'm not sure why star-status is more important than being able to dance, but apparently it is. It turns out that a sport star's wife who can dance well, is ridiculed because she isn't a real star {shrugs} I hope Haley wins, personally.

Format

So far this season, we have had a dance-off, a surprise music segment and a re-dance. The dance-off involved all the remaining stars dancing the Jive while the judges picked them off one by one, until a victor was left. The surprise music segment was a fizzer. The stars knew what dance they were dancing, had a routine choreographed, but had only an hour to practise it to music - sounds like an average medalists or competition day to me! The re-dance entailed the remaining four stars having to dance a Cha Cha Cha each. Two were eliminated and the remainder had to repeat their dance. The judges picked the winner. None of which added to anything spectacular or 'new' to the show.

Sonia Kruger

Sonia is the queen of foot in mouth disease. This year she possibly topped the cake with her comment about Brynne and her 'dad.' In true Sonia-style though, she apologised profusely when her she realised that her comments had offended. Fans of Sonia found it funny. Enemies of her, rang the network and complained.

Message Boards

This year Channel 7 and Yahoo finally listened to the fans and upgraded their message boards. They look incredibly pretty now and are loads more user-friendly. Except no one really uses them much any more. They are too busy ringing the network and trying to find the complaints department (of which there isn't one).

Finale

So who will win? My predictions are that Manu Feildel will win because he is loved by the fans of My Kitchen Rules as well as being actively promoted by channel 7. Damien Leith will come second. Haley Bracken will be voted first by the judges, because she can actually dance, but since it will fall to public vote, she will be placed in third position.