‘Dancing with the Stars 23’ postmortem: Why Marilu Henner, Derek Hough were eliminated
This past episode of “Dancing with the Stars” proved to be an entertaining one when it comes to Broadway routines and scores, but it also turned out to be a pretty sad one if you classify yourself a fan of Marilu Henner. After all, we saw the former “Taxi” star eliminated from the competition alongside her partner in Derek Hough, and while she may have seen it coming, you obviously want to go as far as you can in the competition.
Before we go any further here in explaining why Marilu is gone, let’s start things off by making one thing very much clear: We’re always bummed to see someone leave who seemed to love being a part of the show as much as Marilu did. She’s someone who came on board a super-fan, and she had a chance to work with someone in Derek who is one of the longest-tenured pro and a champion many times over. We hope she got what she wanted to out of the experience.
Now, let’s get into why precisely she didn’t end up winning this:
1. Lower scores – It has to start with a simple matter of performance, and there were people over the course of this season of the show who were generating better scores than Marilu was. This is pretty easy to telegraph in that way. She overcame a lot given her various injuries and being the oldest person left, but the writing was on the wall.
2. Relevancy – Marilu is best known for a sitcom that is decades old, which means she probably doesn’t have the younger contingent many other people do. Remember, Calvin Johnson, Laurie Hernandez, and James Hinchcliffe have all been active in their sports over the past year, Terra Jole is a current reality star, and Jana Kramer is very active in the performing scene.
3. Narrative – It was a little harder to pinpoint something for Marilu in terms of her “story” on the show, at least in terms of how she was presented. That’s something that is a little easier when you’re an athlete coming off of the Olympics or someone who’s been through what Jana has over time.
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