Season 16 - What's Wrong and What's Right

This season has been a mess with some good dancing, some okay dancing, and some bad dancing. Yet, nothing has knocked our socks off.  Nothing.  So we asked what was missing, and it took us about three seconds to come up with the answer.  It's obvious.  If the dancing is there, the chemistry isn’t.  If the chemistry is present, the dancing isn’t.  No team has managed to combine both of those integral parts into something believable.  Upon further examination, we keep coming back to what’s wrong with Season 16.  To be fair, we did find a few things that are right with the season too, and below, we have covered both.

What’s wrong with Season 16

1. Twitter – ick. From “voting” for the encore, to “voting” for prom king/queen, to “voting” for the pro for a pro dance that turned out to be an 18 second bumper, to “voting” for the winner of the team dance  – this has stunk up the place with hints of “there is only one way this will end up.” It’s a pain in the ass, it’s inaccurate, and it doesn’t work.  Betcha we can predict the winner of the team encore dance right now. The trend is already in place.

2. It’s boring. Granted, a big part of it is that Tristan and Dorothy had to withdraw, but where is the excitement, the passion, and the red-hot, lust-induced, smoking/smoldering chemistry? We haven’t seen it once this season. That's because the pros and their celebs don't connect with each other on that level, and that’s a darn shame because that’s what makes dance exciting. And of course we know Zendaya can't get sexy with Val because she's only 16 - jjust in case you forgot - but unfortunately nobody else is connecting either.

3. We’re being force fed the troupe and various and assorted other unrecognizable dancers to the point that we want to scream, “FOUL!” We like the troupe, and we especially like Sasha, Emma, Henry, and Oksana, but the newness just isn’t cutting it. Yes, Witney was amazing in her dance with Tristan, but honestly, the troupe this season is boring. They are also consistently out of sync. People tune in to see the DWTS pros do their dances, not to see dancers that we've never seen before trying their best to outdo one another just to get the chance to become a pro. In Season 13, the Troupe was used in perfect doses as filler in between pro dances as well as in musical guest dances. Now they are peppered in every single dance, and it's too much to handle. We aren’t even getting too much of a good thing.  It's just too much.  Let’s return to the basics, please.

4. No offense to ABC's decision-making ability, but Lindsay should have been in the troupe this season. She’s adorable, she has a great attitude, but she doesn’t have the experience, the savvy, or the knowledge to teach a large amount of material in a short period of time. Victor is a famous athlete and we've expected more from him. We’re not saying that it's completely Lindsay's fault, but she's not ready to handle the stress of the show and you can tell that in rehearsal footage. It's not just about teaching someone a dance; it’s about being a mentor, being their therapist and being their better half for the entirety of the show. Again it's nothing personal, but someone like Oksana or Emma would have been better choices, and they have earned the right to try.

5. These mega-sized pro dances have to go. We can’t even tell who is dancing 98% of the time (partially due to the Blonde Conspiracy of Season 16), and if we wanted to see huge production numbers, we would go to Las Vegas. This is not working. What happened to the good old days when there were 3 couples max on the dance floor and you had a chance to watch them all and truly appreciate them as dancers? Sure, the all male pro dance was great but it should have been just the male pros....and not with the troupe members thrown in so they could see who could “out bare chest” the regular pros.

6. New isn’t always better. Gleb, Lindsay, Witney, Julz, are we missing anyone? There are so many new people that we don't know where to look. Again, it's too many people to keep track of on the dance floor and it's making us go cross-eyed.

What’s right with season 16

1.This is much harder to write than the “what’s wrong” portion, but we’re giving it a shot. Tristan is something right. He has class, principles, and a wicked sense of humor. Handling what no pro should have to handle for two consecutive seasons (both of which were doomed), he has persevered and shown how to deal with crap without excuses. He always brings an amazing energy to the show and that's why it's so painful when we don't get to see him week after week. The great thing is that ABC has picked up on it and so they've been giving him more screen time. As we've discussed many times before, even if Tristan had a short go with Dorothy this season, this really has been his season. The commercial bumpers, the pro dances like the Contemporary dance he did with Witney, and the fact that they chose him to dance with two different teams during Len's Challenge week all translate into respect.   People can't get enough of Tristan.  Neither can we.  Hear that, ABC?

2. We’ve gotten used to the nonsense. In fact, the show is so predictable that we don’t even get annoyed any longer when idiotic things are thrown at us – like voting for prom king/queen, voting for encore- blah blah blah. We are no longer surprised so it doesn’t make our blood pressure escalate. Monday nights are now a breeze and we laugh at the judges instead of throwing things at the tv and Tuesdays no longer require puke buckets. Heck, we just can't wait to watch Tuesday results show now, and we find it amusing when they announce who gets the boot. We're sick of everyone already anyway.

3. Tom Bergeron is a rock star and the real star of this show. Without Tom the show wouldn't be the same...plain and simple. Forget the fact that having to watch Brooke deliver her questions makes us cringe. Tom brings us that humor that we need to keep things light, not to mention that he has an uncanny talent for coming up with one line zingers at the drop of a hat. That's not easy to do folks.

4. Sharna is going to be a great pro on DWTS – in fact, we’ll go out on a limb and say she may already be one of the best on the show. Of all the new pros, she’s by far the best teacher, and she’s a top notch choreographer who doesn’t need to showboat or overdance to make that statement. She's creative, gorgeous, sexy and strong. We love her dynamic with Andy, and we love how she handles “Andy under pressure.”

5. It’s good comedy. The Sean/Tristan Comedy Team is the best part of the season. The dancing? Not so much. But it doesn't matter because the Sean and Tristan comedy hour gave us a good week of delightful visual goodies. We don't know who came up with this little marketing idea for these two but it was bloody brilliant. Tristan has a natural knack for playing the straight man in this scenario, and even though this isn't exactly Abbott and Costello, it still works.

6. The biggest “right”? MacManiacs have been in training since that fateful Week 2 Tuesday night. We’re building up our arsenals of voting accounts, supporting Tristan by making him a DWTS icon, recruiting new members to our already big group, and using social media as only MacManiacs can. Season 17? We’re already there.