No dance-off needed after ‘Dancing’ finale

Indeed, if anything marred the two-part, four-hour, Thursday-Sunday finale — which actually included some pretty enjoyable dancing — it was the greedy decision to stretch what could have been done in one hour into four. Over and over, we heard the story of every couple and how they got here. Over and over, we saw clips of earlier dances. Yes, we remember Drew and Cheryl's paso doble. You showed it to us the other night. And they danced it again the other night. Yes, we remember Stacy's jive, BOTH TIMES. We even remember Kenny Mayne, we promise — can we move on now?

The show did indeed drag the old eliminated celebrities back on stage, including Tatum O'Neal, who looked like she still hated her partner, and Master P, who looked — believe it or not — even less prepared for one minute of dancing than when he was on the show.

It was lovely, though, to see Tia Carrere and Giselle Fernandez and Lisa Rinna again, and to see the obviously enduring nature of their platonic, married-lady crushes on their hot dance partners. Tia and Maksim shaking their groove things to "Jailhouse Rock" at the end of a group number was almost enough to make up for the number of times viewers were forced to hear Bruno mention Stacy's legs.

By the time the announcement of the winner approached, even host Tom Bergeron was making jokes about how long it had taken to get here. Probably the best line of the night, however, went to Drew, during an interview in which he said, "It's an ugly trophy, but you still want to win it." And it is an ugly trophy, too — a disco ball on top of a post, basically. Why does anyone care?

Well, for the same reason they care about most competitive shows like this — people want the horse they've bet on to finish first. This is the second season of "Dancing" in which a celebrity who seemed like an early favorite was picked off by one who improved from week to week, and there's no question that improvement makes a better story than a ringer.

For all its silliness and filler and Master P, the season overall was oddly satisfying. Stacy was perfect and chilly and her partner seemed kind of obnoxious, and they went out very late. Jerry was a disaster at first, and overachieved to a preposterous degree just by being in the final two. Drew was a hard-working, talented-but-not-brilliant guy who got along like crazy with his headstrong, very young partner under the watchful eye of his enormously pregnant wife.

And when Bergeron finally got around to announcing the winner and bringing the season to an end, Drew got the win that he had earned, both over the season and especially in this final four-hour stall-a-thon. Had it not been packed to the gills with Mary J. Blige, physical therapy footage, and more opportunities for George to be a ham and Tatum to be a sourpuss, the whole thing would have been even more fun.

Linda Holmes is a writer in Bloomington, Minn.

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