Dancing with the Stars 31x8

[silverstarry]

Opening:

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31x8: Halloween Night
Val tested positive for COVID so Gabby danced with Alan this week

individual dances

Comments

[silverstarry]

I agree that Jordin shouldn't have been eliminated. Although she and Heidi are at roughly the same dance level right now, Jordin has improved over the weeks while Heidi has been at the same place from the beginning. In addition, Heidi has been overscored for most of the season. She has been getting 9s since week 4 and she got her first 10 last week. You will never be able to convince me that she deserved a 10 for this week or last week. This was also her second time in the bottom 2 so she needs to go.

I also agree that Vinny and Trevor have shown improvement, BUT I also think that Trevor did not deserve multiple 10s for his contemporary this week. If you just watch him (not Emma), he didn't do much dancing in this routine. I felt like the judges were scoring Emma's choreography rather than Trevor's dancing.

I feel bad for Vinny because there have been previous celebs who were worse dancers and the judges kept giving them praise. But for some reason, they feel free to tell Vinny that he sucks every week. I do feel that he's not going to get much better but there have been past seasons where really terrible dancers made it to the finale or the top 4 because that's what sometimes happens when you let the American public vote, so it's not like he's the first contestant to stay on the show despite not being a great ballroom dancer.

Koine really impressed me on SYTYCD so I was excited to see her on DWTS. From the rehearsal footage we've seen, I think she's doing a good job of teaching Vinny (especially considering that she is not really a ballroom dancer) and aiming the choreography right on that sweet spot of challenging him but also making it doable for him. I think the main issues for her are that she got paired with someone who has no dance experience and she doesn't know exactly how to choreograph the dances to get higher scores from the judges, which just takes time.

In regular dance competitions (meaning not like this show), there is usually a list of requirements which helps fill the routine, and then there's the added bonus when you know what the judges like (for example, this week on GBBO, one of the contestants made something inspired by key lime pie because he knew that it's one of Paul's favorite desserts). Even when it's not explicitly stated that this judge likes XYZ, you start to figure it out once you see your scores and everyone else's scores vs their content.

I think with a few more seasons, she will get a better feel for what can elicit higher scores from the judges. I don't think there's anything wrong with the routines that she's given Vinny this season though. She has put a good amount of content in them and tried to work with his strengths. I also like that unlike some other pros, she actually expects her partner to put in the work and dance. I HATE when the other pros get a non-dancer as a partner and they just have him stand there while they dance around him. I also like that she doesn't put in a bunch of show off moves for herself. She is focused on teaching Vinny the basics of the dance, not making him a prop that she can dance around.

[helloitsmeabby]

I had no idea she was on SYTYCD! You’re right that there is nothing wrong with her routines; the judges pointed out on Halloween Night that Vinny got all the steps right but his style was weak (which, again, not sure what they expect from a celeb with no dance background whatsoever). Her and Vinny also seem to have a solid partnership and I don’t get that vibe from all the pairings

I also wholeheartedly agree that Heidi has been over scored and it’s frankly irritating to watch. The judges love to pick out celebs to do this to while underscoring others (Shangela and Wayne come to mind here). This is also the second time that Heidi has been in the bottom two over someone who has shown more improvement than her. While I was half hoping she’d stay the first time because by that point it seemed like all the contestants over 50 were getting eliminated back to back, the fact that she’s had multiple chances while others haven’t is bs.

I also wanted to add in my original comment that it bothered me the way the judges were critiquing Charli this ep. She is only eighteen and half her partner’s age; I don’t want to see any ‘intensity’ and ‘intimacy’ or whatever else Carrie Ann said about her dancing. Mark has been careful about boundaries and avoiding inappropriately sexy routines with his celeb partners in the past, so that comment seemed unnecessary. And Len singling her out during the group dance was weird af.

[silverstarry]

She finished second on her season of SYTYCD! Afterward, she did an interview where she said she wanted to learn ballroom dancing so I guess that's what she did at some point between then and now (it helps that she's been dating one of her former SYTYCD dance partners who is a ballroom dancer).

Some of her routines on SYTYCD:

audition

solo

contemporary

Broadway

salsa

jive

disco

closet dance