Carrie Ann Inaba was “absolutely confused and a little irritated” on “Dancing with the Stars” when Ally Brooke and Kate Flannery were announced as the bottom two on “Dance-Off Night” — you and me both, Carrie Ann. Bruno Tonioli also thought it was the wrong bottom two. But it was unanimous: Inaba, Tonioli and Len Goodman saved Brooke, whom they had given a perfect score that night. Flannery, to her credit, took the bad news like a champ, but even the judges can’t mask their disdain for the voting anymore. Watch the fateful moment above.
This season the show took a step in the right direction by allowing the judges to decide who to save and who to eliminate from the bottom two. The problem is, viewer votes carry so much weight that the judges’ scores hardly seem to matter at all anymore, and those viewer votes have been overwhelmed by political actors making “DWTS” the latest front in a resentful culture war. So the judges keep having to make the best of bad choices.
In week six the judges sent home Sailor Brinkley-Cook to save Brooke, but they didn’t want to eliminate either of them. Then in week seven the judges sent home Karamo Brown to save Flannery, but they didn’t want to have to make that call either. And Inaba didn’t mince words about her annoyance with the votes when she had to choose between Flannery and Brooke this time. It’s pretty clear that the judges are subtweeting the dance-challenged Sean Spicer when they tell an eliminated contestant that they shouldn’t be the one going home, and they appear to be losing their patience.
So the question is, how will the judges react if Spicer actually wins the whole thing? How will Tom Bergeron react after criticizing the producers for casting Spicer in the first place? And how many viewers will want to stick around for season 29 of “DWTS”?
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