In a fall season of serialized dramas, the most compelling soap opera on TV has played out on the “Dancing With the Stars” ballroom floor.
Love–or its lusty cousin–has been rumored between partners Mario Lopez and Karina Smirnoff, partners Willa Ford and Maksim Chmerkovskiy, and an unidentified coupling co-host Samantha Harris will only allude to and giggle about.
“To be honest, we just read Us Weekly every week to find out what’s going on on our own production,” said executive producer Conrad Green. “It’s been really quite dramatic.”
What Green and ABC prefer to keep up with are the show’s soaring ratings. With an average of 20 million viewers, “Dancing With the Stars” is the No. 1 reality series and the fourth most-watched show. In its third season, “Dancing” grew 8 percent in total viewers and 10 percent in the desirable 18- to 49-year-old demographic and ranks No. 9 among 18- to 49-year-olds who earn more than $100,000.
“Our audience skews female, so maybe the boys have more of a chance,” Green said, referring to last week’s semifinal round in which, for the first time, three men–Lopez, Joey Lawrence and Emmitt Smith–were vying for the finale spots. “They’re good-looking, muscly boys with almost no clothes on.”
Lopez, 33, Lawrence, 30, and Smith, 37, have surely delivered the goods. After scoring a three-way tie with the judges, Lawrence was voted off by viewers last week, which set up Tuesday’s final dances between Lopez and Smith.
No matter who goes home with the trophy at 7 p.m. Wednesday, the big winner this season seems to be the art of male ballroom dancing itself. Who could ever call this a girlie sport again after watching Smith’s commanding, yet elegant waltz and Lopez’s potent tango?
Proving that tough guys can dance was a priority for the three semifinalists. Lopez, who signed up for the show to please his mother, refused to wear rhinestones and sequins; his hypersexual chemistry with Smirnoff took care of the rest.
In the beginning, Lawrence found some of the moves–pointing his toe or raising his pinkie finger–were tough to get right, or feel at ease with.
“You gotta get in touch with a whole different part of you,” Lawrence said. “But when you embrace it, it actually feels very masculine to do that because it is very traditional in the sense that the man leads and does take control of the woman.”
Three-time Super Bowl winner Smith said it was all about “letting go.”
“You have to be comfortable within yourself and understand that for some of the dances, you have to learn different techniques. You have to let loose.”
A happily married father of two, Smith joked about the rumored “love fests” and said he did not blame the singletons around him. Co-host Harris agreed.
“You put two gorgeous, sexy, passionate people in a room together, locked up for hours a day, body to body, learning these dances,” she said. “It’s just human nature to fall for each other or have a tryst of some sort. And you know what? Enjoy.”
In a way, only the producers are to blame for the love connections. Celebrities do not audition. They are interviewed and selected based on their personalities and the level of dancing skill producers perceive them to have. Complementary personalities are a factor when they match them with the dancing professionals, but more important are the aesthetics.
“A lot of it is height; they need to look good together,” co-executive producer Izzie Pick said. “You’re matching for cohesion and for it to work as a partnership. It’s like matchmaking.”
Smith is the first to admit he “got real lucky” when he was paired with last year’s winner Cheryl Burke, 22, a champion dancer and skillful choreographer.
Smirnoff, 28, is new to the competition this year. Though she and Lopez are reluctant to call themselves a couple, she spends a lot of time cooing “baby” to him, and in Tuesday’s episode, the pair were shown kissing during rehearsals. She says they are planning to “hibernate” for a week when the show is over “to catch up on sleep.”
IT’S A DEADLOCK
The judges on “Dancing With the Stars” couldn’t pick a winner after Tuesday’s final performances, making the final outcome, as viewers were repeatedly told, “all up to you.”
Finalists Mario Lopez and Emmitt Smith–“Super Mario” and “Twinkle Toes” as they’ve come to be known–performed three dances each on the ABC reality show, and ended up tied 89-89.
The voting was closed Tuesday night, and the winner will be announced at 7 p.m. Wednesday on ABC.
According to Lisa “La Boriqua,” an owner of and instructor at the Chicago dance studio Latin Street Dancing, the judges’ scoring was “right on target.”
“The whole show was just so powerful,” she told RedEye afterward. She said she felt the couples were equally matched all night and that what separated them was “more of a feeling.”
The highlight of Tuesday’s show was the final freestyle dance, in which Lopez and Smith got to cut loose with their professional partners. In that dance, La Boriqua said, Smith and partner Cheryl Burke had an extra something over Lopez and his partner, Karina Smirnoff.
“I was drawn in more by Emmitt and Cheryl,” she said. “I was more pulled in by them … the light in their faces. It was like they were having a party and not in a competition.” [REDEYE].
SCORECARD
Here’s how Lisa “La Boriqua” (right) of Latin Street Dancing scored Tuesday’s dances compared to the TV judges. (A perfect score is 30.)
Emmitt and Cheryl
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DANCE LISA JUDGES’ TOTAL
Samba 9 30
Mambo 10 30
Freestyle 10 29
Mario and Karina
DANCE LISA JUDGES’ TOTAL
Samba 10 29
Pasodoble 10 30
Freestyle 9 30
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