No dance-off needed after ‘Dancing’ finale

The producers of "Dancing With The Stars" are undoubtedly breathing a sigh of relief after Sunday's finale. While last year's conclusion sparked controversy eventually leading to a grudging "dance-off," this year's win by Drew Lachey and his partner Cheryl Burke will go down much more easily with viewers, and rightly so.

Drew and Cheryl utterly dominated Thursday's interminably long two-hour show, so they were in the lead with the judges cruising into Sunday's interminably long two-hour show. After dumping even more endless filler on the audience, the show finally showed a little dancing, as each couple took one more shot at scoring with the judges.

Jerry Rice and Anna executed a very nice cha-cha, in which Jerry looked comfortable, confident, and like he was concentrating on his partner and not on counting, as he so often has. His footwork was remarkably crisp, and he demonstrated that he is the only person in the history of this show to go from Guy Who Can't Dance to Guy Who Can Totally Dance, and if they had a trophy for that, he would walk away with it. Jerry received straight 9s, his first set for anything other than his goofy freestyle.

Stacy Keibler and Tony then stepped up for a samba, but not before Stacy noted her bad ankle, just in case anyone was tempted to think she just didn't dance very well — or particularly that Tony didn't choreograph very well. Their samba was thoroughly pedestrian, though with plenty of booty-shaking, and the dancing was not only substantially less complex than what Drew would soon present, but it was less complex than what Jerry had presented. As has often been the case, Stacy's scores weren't related to her actual performance, and she received a perfect score of 30 despite a totally ordinary showing.

Wacky scoring
As Drew and Cheryl stepped up, it was difficult not to wonder whether the judges were straining to keep Stacy and Drew close, given that he came in with a lead and her dance had been scored so generously. Unfortunately for those who wanted a spectacularly close finish, Drew and Cheryl's jive was lively, intricate, and infectiously crowd-pleasing. Suspicions that all was not on the up-and-up undoubtedly soared when they received straight 9s for a dance more impressively performed, more difficult, and more energetic than Stacy and Tony's samba.

Drew looked visibly irritated, but the fact remained that because Stacy's freestyle on Thursday night was so awful that Carrie Ann gave her an 8, there was no saving Stacy from second place in the judges' scoring, one point behind Drew. Nothing could have justified an 8 for Drew's jive, and while Bruno undoubtedly would have loved to give Stacy an 11 for her samba, they didn't give him a paddle for that.

Thus, the judges did not tie Drew and Stacy. Instead, Drew was in first place, Stacy was in second, and Jerry was in third. Now it would come down to viewer votes. When host Tom Bergeron announced that the third-place team would now be thrown out, ears of attentive fans perked up. From who came in third, it might be possible to tell who came in first.

Indeed, when Stacy was eliminated, finishing in third place — an outcome that once would have seemed impossible — fans who had parsed the scoring all week knew that Drew had to have won. The math is boring, but suffice it to say that Jerry needed a specific set of circumstances to win, and Stacy's ouster meant it didn't happen. It immediately looked like Drew had done this math for himself, because his face turned to one of relaxed excitement as he prepared to wait out the additional endless filler before the announcement of the winner.

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