Ratings, ratings, ratings...What to do...

Ratings are down. In fact, they stink.  Is anybody surprised?  There has been too much…..well, too much everything the last few seasons.  We’ve done plenty of pondering on this subject, and we are fairly sure we know what will improve those ratings.  Here are our very well-thought-out ideas as to how to make those ratings escalate and get the infusion of MacManiacs going through the roof. These are pretty much guaranteed solutions.

1.  Guys, keep your clothes on.  We really aren’t prudes, and a little skin can be sexy, but there’s something to be said for keeping the mystery alive.  Week after week we see Derek without his shirt, Mark without his shirt, Val showing as much has he can this season without being icky but next season the shirt will be off, Gleb without his shirt, the troupe guys without the shirt, and so on.  Predictable translates into boring, and there’s nothing more boring than seeing 97% of the guys baring their pectorals on a regular basis. Besides all that shiny waxed skin can hurt your eyes due to the blinding glare.

2.  Peta needs to put her clothes on, and Kym needs to find another color to wear besides that champagne/gold blend.  In other words, there should be a few rules and regulations – a dress code.   Anything in danger of exposing “the girls” should be vetoed by, well, us.  Peta is a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen. 

3. The streetwalker look is a no-no unless you are dancing that new dance called the Streetwalker Samba, and we are fairly sure that’s not one of those ballroom or Latin dances designed for DWTS competition.

4.  Speaking of the dances – let’s stick to the basics.  Let’s not give the Waltz to the Waltzing Champion of the world but let’s leave Waltz in the competition.  Leave in the Charleston but don’t use it if one of the celebrities has danced the Charleston in 16 movies about the Charleston.  See where this is going?  (Think Hip Hop - Season 16).  We kind of like these classics:  Slow Waltz, Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot, Quickstep, Rumba, Jive, Cha Cha, Tango, Argentine Tango, Salsa, Samba – maybe even a Lindy Hop, Charleston, Bolero or Lambada for occasional variety BUT we don’t ever want to see Hip Hop, Disco, Afro-Jazz, Jazz, Contemporary, or whatever else they like to throw in.  We loved Tristan and Dorothy’s Contemporary only because they didn’t go to the extreme, but we would have preferred a good old-fashioned Waltz.

5.  Make it fair.  Zendaya didn’t have to do the sexy Rumba this season, and there is a lot of speculation that it’s because it would be “awkward.”  Um, remember Season 13. Tristan and Nancy were told that it was good that they didn’t try to make the Rumba sexy because it might be a little uncomfortable to watch, yet in Season 14 Tristan and Gladys got a metaphorical kick in the ass because the Rumba wasn’t sexy enough.  How is that any less awkward?  A 60-something with a 29 year old is perfectly acceptable, I suppose.  Can you say double standard?

5.  Ringers are gonna happen.  We’ve given up trying to plead our case about a non-ringer season, however, we don’t like it when the ringer has substantial training in the dance style to which he/she is assigned.  Val liked to emphasize that he had never danced Hip Hop – So?  We hear all the time about how the pros can learn new dances in a matter of minutes.  Mark might have gone over the top with the Afro Jazz, but we daresay that he had less experience in that genre than Val did in Hip Hop – and it helped that Val’s partner had been dancing Hip Hop since age 8.

6.  Don't insult the viewers.  We ain’t stupid.  Let’s see – picking the dances for each team was about as simple as getting the mail from the mailbox.  We had 6 choices.  All 6 pros (and some celebrities) tweeted which style they wanted.  Their fans – whether 6,000 or 3,000,000- tweeted that style.  There were no evil plots to tweet for Val and Zendaya to get disco just to throw them off.  So everybody got exactly what they wanted.  Duh.  So no-brainer twitter contests are insulting to our intelligence.

7.  Speaking of Twitter contests – those idiotic twitter contests were idiotic. Did we mention idiotic?  Doesn’t it make sense that the person with the most twitter followers and the most avid tweeters would win every one?  Again.  We ain’t stupid.  We all knew exactly how this was going to turn out.

8.  When the main attraction (the Irish dude) is gone early 2 seasons in a row through no fault of his own, you do something to keep him where the ladies (uh, the viewers) want him - right on the tv screen – bumpers, dances, more dances, and even hosting (at least he wouldn’t be asking embarrassing questions up in the celebrequarium or whatever stupid name they have given to that place now).  What’s the point of making the gasping for breath celebrities go up 300 miles of steps right after dancing anyway?  So they can gaze down upon the masses and wave like the King of Queen of Something? While we’re at it- they should lose that whole idea anyway.  That whole balcony/loft/room with a view thing is just too sparkly and uncomfortable looking. Back to the topic:  Tristan could, in addition to his teaching/dancing/choreographing/partnering duties, be a co-host who would ask fun questions and get fun responses instead of us our covering our eyes, muting the tv, and saying, “Oh no, she didn’t.”

9. Let us take over the casting but not the choreography, the dance selections but not the choreography, and the music but not the choreography.  Just to make sure we’re clear, we should probably also handle the judging.  But not the choreography.

10. Just to make sure things are done properly, fly us (SWAT and Shakes) to LA every week – and put us up in a 5-star hotel because we’re hotel snobs – and then put us in the front row no more than six feet from Tristan MacManus at all times.  Why?  Well, we can write good stuff about the show.  Then we can post it here…..yeah, that sounds good….