The premiere of DWTS<\/em> pretty much went according to what I wrote oriiginally, below, with a few exceptions. They wound-up nixing Keo altogether and moved that new guy, Pasha, up to pro partnering, with Kate Flannery, (who will now most likely be the first to go.)<\/strong><\/p>\n Some of the partners that had previously been leaked turned-out to be incorrect. So:<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m thrilled that my fave to win, James Van Der Beek, got paired with lovely Emma Slater instead of now-matronly Peta Murgatroyd, who now dances with Lamar Odom.<\/strong><\/p>\n And, because of height issues, Mary Wilson is now dancing with Brandon Armstrong, which gives diminutive singer Ally Brooks to equally petite Sasha Farber.<\/strong><\/p>\n All the other pairings in this article are correct.<\/strong><\/p>\n And I forgot to mention that everyone I know still detests creepy co-host Erin Andrews.<\/strong><\/p>\n Breaking News: Christie Brinkley broke her arm yesterday, so she\u2019s being replaced on DWTS<\/em> by…her twenty-one-year-old daughter, Sailor, who has had just one day to learn tonight\u2019s dance! [Note: If she is, indeed, partnered with Val Chmerkovskiy, his new wife, Jenna, might not be too happy with this development. But at least Val has a much better chance of winning this season with a young, spry chick than he did with her old mother.] Or is the injury news just smoke and mirrors because Christie couldn\u2019t hack it, and her daughter has been practicing all along? Hmmm. Show biz.<\/p>\n Read on for what I wrote before this update.<\/p>\n Well, another season of\u00a0Dancing With The Stars<\/em>\u00a0is finally upon us, beginning tonight. The network dispensed with doing this show twice a year, so we haven\u2019t had our ballroom dance fix since last November!!!<\/p>\n How many of these supposed “star” can you name?<\/p><\/div>\n But a lot of the decline in the show\u2019s popularity is due to them never getting \u201cstars\u201d anymore. Actually, they\u2019ve rarely<\/em> had one on there to begin with! While this season\u2019s roster is not exactly a sparkling one, either, at least I\u2019ve heard<\/em> of almost all of them this time. And about half of the dozen are actually somewhat famous, if not exactly really celebrities.<\/p>\n Before I break-down this year\u2019s\u00a0guest<\/em>\u00a0cast, I have to first address the major professional<\/em>\u00a0dancers controversy. I do feel a tad bad for Artem Chigvintsev and Sharna Burgess, who will not<\/em> be on this season and are pretty upset about that diss, but the dozen chosen pros this year\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0part of the usual rotation. It sucks that each year there are no guarantees for these incredible professionals. The dancers are all aware of that creepy policy, but shame on the producers for not figuring-out a better way to keep the dancers on hold; they have to give-up other jobs while waiting to hear if they\u2019re on DWTS<\/em> each season, and they do not receive any type of payment at all if they wind-up not being hired for the show! That really sucks.<\/p>\n Perhaps the powers-that-be over there are trying to save some bucks. They did away with the auxiliary dance troupe<\/em>\u00a0this year, and replaced them with just one female and one male, thereby saving not only four to six salaries, but they probably give the new two a lot less money than they did the former regulars, whose salary most likely increased each season.<\/p>\n One more observation is that this<\/em> season, out of the twelve pros, only three are single! There are two married couples, (Emma Slater and Sasha Farber, and Val Chmerkovskiy and Jenna Johnson,)\u00a0and another five are married to regular people. So they paired all those unavailable folks with \u201ccelebs\u201d who there is absolutely no chance of a flirtation with.<\/p>\n Same with these obscure peeps–how many can you name?<\/p><\/div>\n In the single category, Keo\u00a0Motsepe is way too young for old former Supreme, Mary Wilson. And he\u2019s an honest dude, (I\u2019ve met him,) so there\u2019s little to no chance of the producers making them fabricate a flirtation, either. So, the only two opportunities for the producers to manufacture a \u201cshowmance\u201d is with pro Brandon Armstrong and his Fifth Harmony girl partner, and, more likely, recent\u00a0Bachorlette<\/em>\u00a0Hannah Brown and Alan Bersten, who they tried to whip one up with his skinny weirdo partner last season.<\/p>\n And here\u2019s a personal shocker–believe it or not, there\u2019s one celeb on there whom I detest even more than Sean Spicer. Read on to find-out just who that is.<\/p>\n Okay, here are my first thoughts on the supposed \u201cstars\u201d and their pro pairings. [Note: These are the pairings that were announced originally about a month ago, but now<\/em> the show is being coy about them, saying we\u2019ll have to find-out by tuning-in tonight. So, if I have any wrong, I apologize in advance.]<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m beginning with the only ones I\u2019ll be happy to see, and go down to my bottom two:<\/p>\n My pre-show faves:<\/p>\n Actor James Van Der Beek and pro partner Peta Murgatroyd<\/strong>\u2014This one is a conundrum for me, because I\u2019m a big fan of surprisingly-amusing James, but Peta, not so much. If he had been paired with the likable and shunned-this-season Sharna Burgess, I would have been rooting for them all the way. I most likely still will, though.<\/p>\n Country singer Lauren Alaina and pro partner Gleb Savchenko<\/strong>\u2014While I don\u2019t really care about her, I\u2019ve always thought she was sweet since she was the runner-up on\u00a0American Idol\u00a0<\/em>eight years ago, so I expect more of that same sunshiny-ness on\u00a0this\u00a0<\/em>show.<\/p>\n Comedian Kel Mitchell and pro partner Witney Carson<\/strong>\u2014I have never even\u00a0seen\u00a0this guy in my life, yet I\u2019ve always felt bad for him. He started-out in show biz as the teen-age partner of Keenan Thompson, who has moved right along in\u00a0his career. Keenan is not only\u00a0my<\/em>\u00a0favorite\u00a0SNL<\/em>\u00a0performer perhaps of all time, but he\u2019s uber-famous all-around now, while Kel has not advanced even a tad since their young days on TV. And I love naive Witney, so I hope to really get behind this duo.<\/p>\n Former Supreme\u00a0Mary Wilson and pro partner Keo Motsepe<\/strong>\u2014I\u2019m rooting for them a bit just because Mary got so screwed by Diana Ross and Berry Gordy back in the day.<\/p>\n Former NBA basketball player Lamar Odom and pro partner Emma Slater<\/strong>\u2014His lunacy is sort-of entertaining; it\u2019s a special kind of fun watching a nutty train wreck. And Emma is so sweet, so even though I don\u2019t expect them to last too long, I might just be in their corner a tad.<\/p>\n Ones I don\u2019t care about at all:<\/p>\n Former model Christie Brinkley and pro partner Val Chmerkovskiy<\/strong>\u2014Even though she\u2019s danced Fosse-style on Broadway (in Chicago<\/em>,) I don\u2019t see Christie as being very graceful. And I have a feeling her all-plastic-by-now face will annoy me. But I am<\/em> a fan of Val, so we\u2019ll see on this one.<\/p>\n Fifth Harmony singer Ally Brooke and pro partner Brandon Armstrong<\/strong>\u2014I\u2019ve never seen nor heard of this girl, but I feel for her because a couple of her former band-mates have achieved solo fame, and she\u2019s still obscure. So this is her attempt at getting a modicum of mainstream publicity, as well.<\/p>\n Recent\u00a0Bachorlette<\/em>\u00a0Hannah Brown and pro partner Alan Bersten<\/strong>\u2014I\u2019ve never seen this girl, of course, (because I\u2019m not classless enough to watch crap like the Bachelor<\/em>\u00a0 franchise,) but she looks pretty enough, and Alan seems like a nice guy. So I\u2019m willing to give them a chance.<\/p>\n Queer Eye<\/em>\u00a0guy Karamo Brown and pro partner Jenna Johnson<\/strong>\u2014Again, I never watch classless crap like Queer Eye<\/em>, so I have no idea who this guy is. And Jenna is never very good; she won on the shortened season after the Olympics only because she was paired with uber-popular and fabulous Olympic ice skater, Adam Rippon. So this pair could possibly be a snoozefest.\u00a0\u00a0Then again, Karamo is a gay guy of color, so he has dance-skills possibilities. (Is that not politically correct to say? But it\u2019s a compliment, so it has to get a pass, right?)<\/p>\n Actress Kate Flannery and pro partner Sasha Farber<\/strong>\u2014I have no idea who this woman is, but from her picture, she doesn\u2019t stand a chance. Except maybe with the pity vote. Just saying\u2019.<\/p>\n Ones I can\u2019t stand:<\/p>\n Political aide Sean Spicer and pro partner Lindsay Arnold<\/strong>\u2014I feel bad because Mr. X adores<\/em> Lindsay, but Sean has\u00a0got\u00a0<\/em>to be the first to go. However, he\u2019s not even my most hated one on there! That honor goes to:<\/p>\n NFL football player Ray Lewis and pro partner Cheryl Burke<\/strong>\u2014This is the one contestant I desist so much more than Sean Spicer. Sean is just a moron, but Ray Lewis is a killer. Literally. He should be in jail, not on a dance floor. Or our TVs. (Here\u2019s the story, if you don\u2019t know it:\u00a0\u00a0www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/2013\/01\/10\/ray-lewis-baltimore-ravens-atlanta-murder-2000\/1566198<\/a>.)<\/p>\n In addition to the the show\u2019s changes this season that I mentioned at the top, here are some more:<\/p>\n I believe that the viewers have always been able to vote\u00a0during<\/em>\u00a0the show, without having to wait till the end, which is never fair. But now they\u2019ll show<\/em> the results of that \u201clive vote\u201d at the end of each show. Of course, it\u2019s far from representative of the\u00a0real<\/em>\u00a0vote\u2014first of all, only people on the east coast, (and others who lied when they ordered their satellite plans,) get to see the show live! So we will never know what\u2019s really<\/em> going on with the entire voting population. Staying the same, though, is that many people will be voting for just the duos they like, in general, without even seeing anyone perform<\/em>, which is beyond unfair. But, I have to keep reminding myself that it\u2019s just a stupid TV show.<\/p>\n![\"How](\"http:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/dwts-season-28-cast-1566391781.jpg\")
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