Judging by the last moments of the elimination episode on Tuesday night, things could get tense next week when the winner is nominated for this year’s series of the ABC dance competition Dancing with the Stars; Some audience members booed study in the final minutes of Tuesday’s results show when host Tom Bergeron announced that the pop singer Brandy was out and Palin, Bristol, Sarah’s daughter was the final round of competition next week. Actress Jennifer Grey stars Kyle Massey and Disney had already gotten the word that had been through the last week. Among racks, Grey dance partner Derek Hough was visibly surprised. Similarly, three of the series of professional judges and co-host Brooke Burke.
“This is such a shock!” Brooke said, throwing it to Bruno.
“I’m shocked,” judge Bruno Tonioli said. “I want to stress it’s very important for everybody to vote. It’s so close, every vote counts. I’m so disappointed!” Bruno emoted, asking Brandy if she’d come back and dance on next Monday’s performance show anyway.
“Will you come and do it for me, for us? Come on!”
Asked by Burke how she felt, Brandy responded:
“I don’t know how to feel right now. This hasn’t processed right now for me,” a surprised Brandy said.
Bergeron stepped up and hugged Brandy as she began to tear up.
Jennifer and Kyle had gone into Tuesday night’s results show with the most points from the three pros after performing two dances apiece on Monday. Jennifer got a perfect score of 60 for her two dances, while Kyle snagged 58 points. Brandy was right behind him at 57 points, and Bristol brought up the rear with 53 points from the judges, though that was her personal best on the show to date.
But that was business as usual for this edition of “Dancing.” Bristol, who went into the competition with no dance and no performance background, has consistently wound up at the bottom of the point heap. But, week after week, people — some who have watched the show and, if tweets, blog accounts and message boards are to be believed, some who have not — have been keeping her in the competition.
Who survives each week on this show is determined by a formula of judges’ points and people’s votes.
After the announcement, Bergeron asked Brandy’s dance partner Maks Chmerkovskiy: “This season struck me as the most surprising in that couples who would get their highest score on Monday night were often the ones who left on Tuesday night. What do you think has been different this season?”
Maks, with uncharacteristic restraint, responded that one thing he loves about the fact that his parents came to this country is “the fact that people vote and their voices count and I love the fact that the show represents that. And it represents the people’s choice.”
Tuesday morning, the Web site Jezebel linked to comments on conservative Web site HillBuzz, in which people discussed having figured out a way to game ABC’s email-voting feature, due to a technical glitch on the site.
“Here’s a hint: They don’t have to be VALID email addresses to register them with ABC.com, there is apparently no validation process,” said one commenter. “They just have to be formatted like a valid email address, and you must use a valid zip code and a birthdate that makes you old enough to vote. No, it doesn’t have to be a valid email address – I had one of my anonymous ones XXX@yahoo.com that I used, and then just did the sign-up process all over again with XXX1@yahoo.com and it worked.”
“Lord have mercy, I voted for 3 hours online! I got 300 in,” said another commenter.
After Tuesday’s results show, Hillbuzz posted a screen shot of Jennifer Grey and Derek Hough’s reaction to Bergeron’s announcement that Bristol, not Brandy, was the third dancer making it through to next week:
“Thank you all for helping Bristol Palin…just look at Jennifer Grey’s face… Says it all. Our Bristol is in the finale. The woman impersonating Jennifer Grey looked pissed. [Brandy] is eliminated and hopefully not allowed to drive herself home. How do we win this for Bristol?”