In theory, “Dancing With The Stars” (ABC, concludes Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET) works differently from pure call-in voting shows like “American Idol.” Complex rules available at ABC’s web site explain how viewer voting is combined with scores from three “expert” judges to arrive at a final result. It seems like an awfully large coincidence, however, that on Tuesday night, for the second week in a row, the judges managed to score six dances perfectly so as to create a tie and leave it all in the hands of the viewer vote.
It’s not that call-in voting can’t lead to problems of its own. “Idol” struggles every year with conspiracy theories about blocked phone lines, record company machinations, and Ruben Studdard fans with magic radar devices that block cell phones in North Carolina. But for “Dancing,” much of the controversy has surrounded the judging. This is a show that got off to a fairly scandalous first season when scantily dressed upstart Kelly Monaco knocked off ultra-suave favorite John O’Hurley, in part because she received some eyebrow-raising high scores on the last night of the competition.
So perhaps it isn’t surprising that the show might elect to remove its own judges from the equation for the last couple of rounds and let the audience fight it out. This way, all the blame for any bad result gets dumped on the stupid fans next door, rather than at the feet of the show’s own judges, whose results are often difficult to understand except as suspense-building plot devices.
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