"Dancing With The Stars: All-Stars" elimination: Bristol rescued, Fatone ousted
Joey Fatone and professional partner Kym Johnson were the second contestants to be ousted from the Season 15 "Dancing With The Stars: All-Stars." / ABC
Back again is the baffling, and ultimately annoying phenomenon seen in Season 11 as better dancers, one by one, got their hats handed to them while wooden-faced Bristol persevered in the competition. Can any fan of the show forget the wounded look on singer Brandi's face when she went home instead of Bristol?
As now-gone contestant Pamela Anderson joked last week, Palin "has the whole Tea Party, right?"
With Palin under the protection of her Red State fans, the finger of doom swung Tuesday to paunchy ex-NSYNC band member Joey Fatone. In his two routines this season, Fatone tried to fire up the comic cutups that carried him far in Season 4.
This week's routine had him dressed as a Charlie Chaplin character. The dance's finale had him leaping toward a couch where luscious partner Kym Johnson waited, only to overshoot the mark and fly over and behind the couch.
"Everybody had a good time. ... People said I was fun, that's all that matters," said Fatone after getting the bad news.
"Dancing with the Stars: All-Stars"
Getting back to Bristol: This is going to be a tedious thing to watch if she lingers in this all-star competition of extra-sharp contestants. She was hands down the worst dancer on Monday, which was reflected in her scores from the judges.
Instead of doing the smart thing, which would be to modestly say, "Hey, what can I do? I can't help it if they're voting for me," Bristol instead showed a sulky side over the judge's low scores for her flawed country-western quick step.
"It is what it is. I'm going to get sixes no matter what. ... I don't ... whatever ... it's all good," said pouty Bristol, who seemed to see a conspiracy against her.
At age 21, Bristol's closest contemporary in the show is gymnast Shawn Johnson, 20. The difference between the two couldn't be wider. Johnson has achieved so much in her life, winning gold and silver medals in the 2008 Olympics and the "DWTS" mirrorball trophy in Season 8. Johnson is all smiles and a quintessential little trouper, while dour Bristol's main claim to fame is ... well, we won't go there.
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To be fair, the fan vote is part of the built-in mechanics of "DWTS." And the fan vote has been able to swing success toward more engaging performers - Castroneves, Emmitt Smith and Johnson - who all managed to grab the mirrorball trophy away from technically superior, if less popular competitors.
With Palin, it's just the magnitude of the ground that has to be made up by fan support. When the judges routinely, and correctly, give her the lowest scores of the night, it takes that much more volume from fans to bring her back above water.
In this election year, Mitt Romney may not win, but it's possible Bristol Palin could do very well from Red State supporters who think a vote for Sarah's daughter equals a big, juicy raspberry for the liberal establishment.
"DWTS" host Tom Bergeron announced that next Tuesday will be a double elimination. If Bristol survives that, she really needs to work on her spin of how it's justified.
Joining Fatone in the bottom two was race car driver and Season 5 champ Helio Castroneves, who had a fine dance Monday. The competition is so fierce this season that one can't help but want the results to be based on talent.
"It is what it is. I'm going to get sixes no matter what ... I don't ... whatever ... it's all good," said Bristol Palin after getting the lowest marks of the night Monday, Oct. 1, 2012. With her is partner Mark Ballas.
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I have seen some horrible dancers on DWTS. Michael Bolton, Cloris Leachman, among others.
While Bristol doesn't deserve to be in the final three of this year's show (understandable since most of the other celebs won their seasons) she is certainly better than some of the other talent and definitely deserved to be in the final three in Season 10.
There are other celebs in this season that you should be scratching your head over. Kirstie Alley. I love her but she is certainly worse than Bristol. And frankly I don't see what the judges see in Drew Lachey. The guy is NOT good. Certainly he is no better than Bristol, yet consistently scores higher scores than Bristol. To say that the judges are biased is stating the obvious. They complement Bristol, sometimes effusively, then give her the lowest score. They point out obvious problems, even rule violations, with the other celebs, yet give them high scores.
Finally, the saddest thing here is the name-calling. The liberals who are calling Bristol and her mother disgusting names are only demonstrating that they lack class. Sarah Palin was the GOVERNOR of Alaska. Her daughter was WORKING for a dermatologist when she was tapped for DWTS the first time. These are both respectable, hard-working women who are hated only for the fact that they won't toe the liberal line that says ALL women have to be libs.
Sarah and Bristol Palin are women who think for themselves, who believe in the value of all human life, born and unborn. Her mom had a Down's Syndrome child instead of opting for abortion. Bristol opted to be a teen mom instead of getting an abortion. How dare they choose to have their babies?! Don't they know that is just not accepted?!
You can stop the ranting about the conservatives making this about politics...as if you who are Palin-haters are just looking at the facts. You hate these women because they actually choose to think for themselves. Because they actually have a brain and a work ethic and choose to be Republican (how dare they?) Moreover, they are both gorgeous women which drives the liberals like Nancy Pelosi and Wasserman-Schultz crazy. How dare they have the right to be smart AND good-looking too?!
Anyhoo, I don't care for Sarah Palin, but she's not the one on the show, so I don't hold anything I don't like about Mrs. Palin against her daughter. That said, I'm sorry, but Bristol Palin can NOT dance. If the show were called, "Shuffling around and making Snooki Faces with the Stars", Bristol would be a shoe-in, but especially compared to most of the other dancers? Sorry, girlfriend.
If the show were really about talent, Kirstie Alley would've already been gone and Bristol would have followed shortly thereafter.
There is no doubt that there is a bias against Bristol by the judges. They will praise her performance and then give her the lowest scores. Her week 2 score of 18 is only understandable when you take into account that they took a point off for breaking hold. Yet other couples flout the rules and sometimes they get the deductions, and sometimes they don't.
For instance, on tonight's show (Week 3) Shawn and Derek also flouted the "hold" rule, yet Bruno gave them a 9.5. How is that possible? If they had performed a perfect 10 (which some say they may have) you still would have had the one-point deduction which would have given them at most a 9 from each of the judges.
But the rules are clearly different for Bristol. She is allowed no slack. Which Mark (whom I love) should realize - he should make sure they stick with the rules so the judges don't stick it to Bristol.
One last thing...tonight Helio made a huge error, yet still managed to score ahead of Bristol, who was stunning and spot-on tonight. How does that work exactly? Oh yeah, Helio is a judges' favorite while Bristol is not. What is going on here is that the fans are making up for the judges' obvious bias. The one is balancing out the other. Which makes perfect sense to me when you have someone like Bristol on, who the producers apparently picked FOR A REASON. Many of those commenting here refuse to realize or acknowledge that Bristol apparently brings something to the table that others don't.