‘Dancing With the Stars’ finally awards trophy

When we left ABC’s  “Dancing With The Stars” on Monday, Apolo Anton Ohno and partner Julianne Hough had scored 58 points with the judges, Joey Fatone and Kym Johnson had 56 points, and Laila Ali and Maksim Chmerkovskiy had 55 points. The finale would bring one more dance from each couple, the crowning of the winner, and a whole lot of segments calculated to make time pass. As much time as possible, with as little effort as possible.

We were, however, assured that America had spoken — hey, that’s us! — and that our votes would “decide everything.” The show immediately welcomed all of its bootees, from first-out Paulina Porizkova (remember? the really tall model?) to the lovely Ian Ziering, whose graceful exit was just last week. Heather Mills gave us one more flip that dared us to suspect her artificial leg was going to fly off, and this time … it didn’t, either! Congratulations, Heather!

Next came a recap of last night’s performances that included backstage “confessionals” in which every celebrity was duly irritated at not getting the scores he or she was hoping for—Apolo for his rumba, Laila for her freestyle, and Joey for his cha-cha. Seeing Joey really angry while still wearing last night’s hot pink ruffled shirt was something of a treat, but other than that, this was nothing we hadn’t already seen.

Surprisingly, as if the recap of last night’s action and the inevitable recap of this season weren’t enough, we plunged into a recap of the entire history of “Dancing With The Stars,” all the way back to what a rough start Kelly Monaco had in the very first season. This was the moment when it became clear that whatever had been lined up to fill these two hours, it wasn’t nearly enough. The show also used this time to promote the summer tour that will be coming to an arena near you, whether you want it to or not.

The professional dancers then came out to provide what surprisingly turned out to be the evening’s only non-celebrity production number, danced to Bjork’s “It’s Oh So Quiet,” which was pleasant to watch, if not particularly special.

Oh, that ugly trophy
When we checked in with a few more former celebrity dancers, we learned that Emmitt Smith still hates the trophy he received. In fact, everyone hates the trophy. The trophy is famously despised, which makes for an interesting climax to any contest.

Lisa Rinna, who has apparently parlayed her “Dancing” appearance into a stint on Broadway, claimed that the show is all about people’s “vulnerability.” First-season controversial runner-up John O’Hurley told us that the show is beloved because babies and old people can watch it together. Time ticked by.

It was now a half-hour into the show, and the finalists had not been introduced yet.

When they finally were, it was time for all three to perform final dances, repeats of things they’d already performed. Apolo and Julianne led off with their paso doble, which got very high marks a few weeks ago. (You may remember it as the paso doble to what sounded a lot like “My Darling Clementine.”) The paso doble looked much as it did the first time, not to mention the second time, and once again, it received nothing but perfect marks.

Joey and Kym chose to repeat their absurd “Star Wars” tango, which also had already been repeated as an encore. Joey is not built for the tango the way he’s built for the jive and some of the upbeat Latin dances, and while he’s apparently learned to keep his behind from sticking out quite so far, he still looked clumsy and uncomfortable. No matter — this was not a night when the judges were going to actually judge, so he received straight 10s. That set of marks was probably the most incomprehensible of the entire season, based on the low degree of difficulty, weak execution, and just plain silliness of that tango.

Laila and Maks elected to do their mambo. It was good before. It was good this time. They received nothing but 10s. Is this beginning to sound familiar? While it was good to see that the judges’ scores weren’t going to end in a contrived tie, it seemed as if the scores for this round were a ceremonial formality, making it appear that perhaps the entire round could have been skipped and — just a suggestion — the show cut to less than two interminable hours.

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