Dancing With The Stars – Season 12 Finale!!!

Well, tonight was the first night of the finale of this wild season! We saw two dances from each of the remaining pairs; the judges choice and the freestyle. This season was a bit different, in that the judges chose a dance that they thought each couple could truly show their growth and improvement with instead of the normal “redemption” dance where they give the couples a chance to improve on a dance they’d earlier had issues with.

Mark and Chelsea danced first each round; their judges dance was the Samba and Carrie Ann gave them some advice. Her main points to Chelsea were to up the sensuality factor as the last time she was a bit too perky in it. Personally, I thought it worked because the Samba was really good. Aside from her weird lip pouting thing she really got into it and continued to show off her technical dance moves too. Onto their freestyle….what a youthful, edgy performance! The theme of it really suited their partnership, but I thought it was a bit out of synch in parts as well. Well, the judges gave them a total of 29 on their Samba, which I thought was better than the freestyle and they gave them a 30 on their freestyle. Weird. Total of 59 for tonight.

Next up were Kirstie and Maks. Their judges choice was also the Samba and Bruno advised them on this one. His pointers to Kirstie were to sharpen up her moves and such. The Samba was solid and fun to watch, but I’ve always liked watching her dance. To be honest, I thought their freestyle was better than the Samba. That freestyle was a great homage to those who feel like people put them down for one reason or another, set to Pink’s “Perfect”. They did lifts and aerials, everything you wouldn’t have expected honestly. Were the lifts perfect? Nope. But then again Chelsea and Marks’ dance wasn’t perfect either, lifts included so it was weird that in addition to the 27 (all 9′s) from the judges for the Samba, they got another 27 for the freestyle.

Finally, Hines and Kym. Their judges choice was the Quickstep with Len advising them. His pointers to Hines were to watch his footwork, as the last time he danced it his feet weren’t “connected” to the dance. What a great dance, seriously. I liked this one better than the freestyle, so it was also weird to see Len give a critique on it. Refreshing, because honestly I didn’t think he’d score any less than perfect tonight, but weird. His freestyle was a cool idea; doing a halftime show since he always missed them as a football player, but like the other two freestyles there were bits that it was just a tad off. Nevertheless, the judges, as expected, loved it. They gave them a perfect score for the freestyle and a 29 for the Quickstep.

So, tonight’s totals are Mark/Chelsea and Hines/Kym tied with 59 points, Kirstie and Maks with 54. Tomorrow they have one more dance for the judges to give scores (and the cynic in me says to skew the results how they’d like) and then the percentage they get from the judges plus the percentage of viewer votes is added together. Whoever has the highest, wins.

Here’s why I think each pair could win:

Chelsea is, in my opinion, the most technically proficient of the three stars. Her steps, movements, etc. are so dead on 99% of the time and she has that edge over the others. Her drawback is even with the Disney factor, she probably doesn’t have a shot at pulling in the same amount of viewer votes as Kirstie or Hines.

Hines is, in my opinion, the most consistent of the three. He never holds back, always gives his all and has a legion of Steeler fans behind him. Fans love him. In my opinion (don’t shot me Steelers/Hines fans!), he’s not as technically proficient as Chelsea but I don’t see a drawback for him either. The judges LOVE this guy. They may have given him the same score as Chelsea, but there’s no way she’ll pull in more viewer votes than him either.

Kirstie is, in my opinion, the best entertainer of the three. She cares, but it isn’t life and death to her if she messes up a step because she still has fun doing it. She’s a true entertainer and has had an amazing transformation. Her drawback is that she’s not as technically proficient as the others so the gap between her and the other two might be hard to catch up with viewer votes.

The thing with this show, though, is that the judges do have their favorites, always have, but I can’t truly fault them for it either. They’re not judging a pro competition here and if they want to be biased like the fans are, so be it. I liked tonight, they gave it their all. None of the freestyles are ones that I’ll remember seasons from now as I do other freestyles BUT this is the coolest final three I’ve seen in awhile.