DWTS: Early Overview

Last season on Dancing with the Stars, we had Melissa Rycroft, Gilles Marini, and Shawn Johnson as the final three. Each of these three were all but perfect in the end, and were separated by the slightest of margins in the judges' scores. Melissa (a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader) had natural dancing talent coming in, Gilles clearly had had some prior experience on the dance floor, and Shawn was driven in the final weeks to continously get better, leading to her overall victory.

This season, we have Mya as the far and away best dancer (and her scores have finally caught up, now that she's learned how to please Len Goodman). Then there's Donny, Mr. Popularity with some of this show's biggest demographics (and one helluva performer), and Kelly, the reality-star-who-could that has beaten out much better dancers to survive this long.

While I did say which two it would come down to weeks ago (Mya's dancing ability vs Donny's popularity), I'm still bothered both by how obviously the show is a popularity contest this season, and how much less the talent is this season as opposed to last season. Granted, I have witnessed a genuine and very commendable progression in both Donny's and Kelly's dancing abilities (and it has been great to see Kelly putting so much into the competition), but in the end, they're still not as good as Mya.

Now I like Kelly and root for her in an underdog/ Rudy kind of way, and even I have to admit that Donny is a great performer, but Mya just blows them away in every category. Well, possibly every category but one: the number of fans.

Donny, of course, had the largest fanbase coming into the competition, and has managed to win over even more people throughout the season. Kelly, due to occasional drama, her noticeable drive to win, and her aforementioned underdog status, has gained more fans than she ever had in her career before the show (such as it was).

Meanwhile Maya has simply been consistently good, and has now advanced to great. But will it be enough? Will the finals prove that superior talent is enough win over the judges and voters, or that simple popularity is all that really matters?

I'll have to wait for next week to decide how much I've liked or hated this season.