Mark Ballas and Chelsie Hightower Join All-Star Line-Up for A CAPITOL FOURTH

Chelsie and Mark will be dancing live in front of LOTS of people at PBS' A Capitol Fourth on Monday. They will dance to Jordin Sparks singing "Beauty and the Beast".

Dancing With the Stars Champion Mark Ballas and Chelsie Hightower Join All-Star Line-Up for A CAPITOL FOURTH on PBS!

The Champions of Dancing with the Stars Are..

...further down the page.

As a reminder the points going into tonight's finale were Hines/Kym
59, Chelsea/Mark 59 an Kirstie/Maks 54.

The finale was two hours long and was preceeded by an encore
performance of last night's show that my son insisted on watching so,
believe it or not, I'm a little Bergeron-ed out!

Here are some observations:

- I wish Mike Catherwood had stayed around longer - he would have been fun!
- I particularly like Chris Jericho and Romeo
- those hidden microphones are a fantastic invention - they actually
add reality to a show that's "reality" in name only.
- it's not a good idea to crowd-design a dance. Although it was nice
to see those soccer ladies that call themselves the GoGos.
- the couples all got thirties for their final performances which
meant Kirstie wasn't as far behind as after two dances
- Chelsea and Mark finished third. I liked them both and as a couple
but I just can't shake the feeling there was favoritism involved.
- Kirstie and Maks were second. Amazing performances from someone her
age and (at least initially) size
- therefore Hines and Kym were crowned champions as expected. I don't
think Hines had a bad week and just kept getting better!

Not the best season but an enjoyable one nevertheless.

Dancing with the Stars Finals: Judges' Scores for First Two Dances

Ah, here we are.  We've survived Maks almost breaking his knee, Kirstie losing a shoe, Kendra's cycle, Chris Jericho's English accent and Kym almost breaking her neck.  Yep, it's been a pretty quiet season.

The Monday of the finals is a little bit of an anti-climax for me.  The freestyles are great but only an hour after nine weeks of time-filling seems a little paltry, and then they show The Bachelorette to top it off.

The couples danced Judges' Choice (the dances the judges felt best "expressed their potential") and Freestyle.

Here are the scores:

Chelsea Kane and Mark Ballas - 29 & 30 = 59
Kirstie Alley and Maksim Chmerkovskiy - 27 & 27 = 54
Hines Ward and Kym Johnson - 29 & 30 = 59

• Chelsea and Mark did just fine.  Their Samba was excellent.  The Freestyle was technically great but it seemed a bit empty, there didn't seem to be  lot of audience feedback or participation.  Both scores were about right.
• Kirstie and Maks were lucky to get 27 for their Samba I felt.  In the finals the judges normally give 9 or 10 it seems.  There Freestyle was amazing.  Not as good technically as the others' but the choreography was better and it was simply the best performance.  And it got 27.  Hmmm.
• Hines and Kym did as well as expected and seem to be a lock for the title.  Their Freestyle was a little too Marching Band for me.

Over the seasons of DWTS I've always taken the conspiracy theories with a pinch of salt.  I do believe people would have voted for Kate Gossilin just to watch the train wreck, that Bristol got a lot of votes from Republican activists and that the judges sometimes got it wrong.  But after last week's Winner Take All Dance that gave the winner (Chelsea) a free pass into the final I wasn't so sure.  And tonight the scoring for Kirstie was just wrong.  The judges looked embarrassed and seemed to agree with the booing. Perhaps the Producers want the Disney kid to win?  I have to say it has spoiled the season for me.

Hey ho.

Tomorrow night's two hour finale sees one more dance from the couples plus the ubiquitous Black Eyed Peas, the GoGos and Sara Evans.

Dancing with the Stars - Season 12 Finale Details

After a long road we're almost there.  Two more shows and we'll find out the winner of the Mirror Ball Trophy.

On Monday the couples dance twice.

The first dance is assigned by the judges based on their view of which dance each couple should excel in.  Then there is the always popular freestyle dance.  (The show is only on for an hour).

The season finale is two hours of look-backs, re-appearances, some more competitive dance and the awarding of said trophy.  The couples will perform their favorite dances of the season and be scored by the judges.  Those scores will be incorporated into the scores from the previous night and the viewers' vote.

The musical guests are the Black Eyed Peas who seem to be on all the big finales/award shows and Superbowls.

Also appearing are the Go-Gos and Sara Evans.

The Finalists of Season 12 of Dancing with the Stars...

...are revealed further down the page.

The pre-Results Show show was about previous freesyle dances in the finals.  Drew Lachey returned to perform with Cheryl.  And previous winners talked us through their dances - Brooke Burke, Apolo Ohno and Donny Osmond.  I have no idea what else happened.

The results show was pretty much the same formula as the rest of the season.  A main guest singing twice, another guest singing once and either  Macy's Stars of Dance or something to tug on our heartstrings.

Tonight we had Stevie Nicks who was very good singing the classic "Landslide" and a new tune from her new album.  We also had Pittbull featuring Ne-Yo and Nayer performing his single, "Give Me Everything" - they were very good too.  We also had a young ballerina who had some sort of disease who's alleged dream was to dance with Lacey Schwimmer and Chelsie Hightower - which she did.

Early on Hines and Kym were told they were in the finals - Duh!

Half-way through Chelsea and Mark were told they were in the final.  Double Duh - they got the 15 points from the bonus Cha Cha!

Ralph and Kirstie were left on the stage at the end.

And, as most expected, Ralph and Karina were eliminated.

I say this a lot about eliminatees but Ralph really was a nice guy.  I felt he didn't build upon his skill as quickly as others but he always put his heart in it.

The celebrities in the final are Hines, Chelsea and Kirstie.  Who will win??

Will Ralph Macchio Be Eliminated Tonight on DWTS?

If you do the math, Ralph and Karina are in a bit of a hole when it comes to share of the judges' vote:

Chelsea/Mark 73 31.1%
Hines/Kym 60 25.5%
Kirstie/Maks 54 23.0%
Ralph/Karina 48 20.4%

But wait!  Last week Ralph was at the bottom of the judges' scoreboard because he was hurt and couldn't move too well - and he wasn't eliminated!

I think it's different this week.  First off, Chelsea and Mark are so far ahead that they're a lock to be in the final.  It would be beyond stunning if they were eliminated.

Secondly, due to Kym's brush with a broken neck there will be a sympathy vote for the couple.  This was something Ralph enjoyed last week when he was injured.

So that means it's between Ralph and Kirstie.  I had some comments about people getting busy tone when they voted for Hines or Kirstie, so I headed over to dialidol.com.

Dialidol.com came out of American idol.  It's a little program that runs on a PC and uses the phone to vote a number of times for a particular contestant. It takes the data and assumes that the contestant with the highest percentage of busy tone has the most votes.  It's not that good at predicting DWTS because the sample size is small and you have the judges' votes as well.  However, if you look at the raw data Hines and Kirstie had a high percentage of busy tones (18% and 16% respectively), Ralph and Chelsea had very low percentages (1% and 4%).

So, I have to think Ralph will be eliminated.  Who do you think will go?

Scores in the Semis of DWTS

Week 9 is semi-final week.  The couples danced a Latin and a Ballroom they hadn't danced before.  Plus, there is a head to head Cha Cha. 

"What's a head to head Cha Cha?" I hear you ask.  Well two couples dance 15 seconds of Cha Cha and the judges pick the winner.  The other two couples dance and the judges pick the winners.  Then the winners go head to head and the judges pick the overall winner.  And they get a bonus 15 points.  Cha-ching.

Speaking of head-head, Kym Johnson danced despite her neck injury.  I suspect they are going to get some sympathy votes from the viewers if the studio audience are anything to go by!

Here are the scores:

Ralph Macchio and Karina Smirnoff - 25 & 23 = 48
Hines Ward and Kym Johnson - 30 & 30 = 60
Chelsea Kane and Mark Ballas - 28 & 30 & 15* = 73
Kirstie Alley and Maksim Chmerkovskiy - 27 & 27 = 54

*Chelsea and Mark won the head-head.

• Ralph really didn't seem that engaged this week - perhaps some after-effects from his injury.
• I felt Hines and Kym were slightly over marked but hey, she deserves it.
• Chelsea and Mark were perky as always, the judges seemed a bit down on their first dance
• Kirstie is still doing amazingly well, and she's 60!

Ralph is obviously in the hole with the only other couple in danger being Kirstie and Maks.

Stevie Nicks tomorrow!