‘Dancing with the Stars 16’ rankings: Sean Lowe soars, but Kellie Pickler still #1
When you have a large fan base, almost anything that you do on “Dancing with the Stars” can be turned into a positive rather quickly. For example, a bad performance can be a test to see how many of your fans ultimately have your back. Meanwhile, a good performance can mean that you’re suddenly in contention again to make the finale. This is what is happening with Sean Lowe on our rankings after his best dance of the season this past week.
With the elimination last week of D.L. Hughley, the picture at the bottom is starting to become a little bit clearer, and we are now at a time when the eliminations will start to become shocking very soon.
8. Andy Dick & Sharna Burgess (last week: 7) – If we had it our way, Andy would be around until the top 5 just when it comes to providing entertainment alone. However, he’s just not the best dancer, and we feel like the producers really threw him a bone this past week by allowing him to perform last, knowing that they don’t have him much longer. Unless he has a brilliant comeback in the scores, this will probably be it.
7. Victor Ortiz & Lindsay Arnold (8) – Victor has survived a number of close scares, and the real reason that we have him above Andy is simply that there is potential here for him to be a pretty good dancer. He may still have another round or two left in him, while Andy is closer to being down for the count.
6. Ingo Rademacher & Kym Johnson (6) – Ingo seems to be firmly planted in the same boring position, but it really goes like this: he’s a better dancer than Victor or Andy, and has a bigger fan following. However, everyone above him is either consistently better, or have shown they have a rather large following of their own.
5. Jacoby Jones & Karina Smirnoff (3) – Jacoby needs a touchdown catch pretty soon, since we’re really starting to get the feeling that America is not going to vote an NFL player to the title yet again. There’s some good dancing here, but there’s really not any buzz, and we think that eventually voters will tire of seeing the same person win year after year.
4. Aly Raisman & Mark Ballas (2) – The biggest challenge for Aly this season is simply that there is a ton of competition from some other strong ladies. Were there no Kellie or Zendaya, we’d probably have her consistently #1. If she wants to get there, she needs to have almost an iconic dance for this show that proves what she is capable of.
3. Sean Lowe & Peta Murgatroyd (5) – There is no universe where Sean is actually a better dancer than Aly or even Jacoby, but he does have an enormous fan base. He is also showing improvement, and if he continues down the trajectory established for him last week, the former “Bachelor” may be the sleeper pick to get into the finale. If that happens, watch out for the epic rose-inspired freestyle dance! (Okay, we don’t know if that would happen, but we can dream…)
2. Zendaya & Val Chermkovskiy (4) – Off of the strength of her last performance, Zendaya earns her highest position of the season for us. She deserved the ten, and the joint presence of the brothers Chmerkovskiy is also an asset. At the same time, though, you have to beg the following question: does she still have the following to topple our favorite?
1. Kellie Pickler & Derek Hough (1) – You can love Kellie even if you don’t love country music, and that voting block alone is super-powerful on these sort of shows. It’s almost a broken record talking about the millions of reasons why she wins this competition in the end, but we just can’t imagine someone with this personality or with so popular a partner going home before the end of the series. Pending some shocker like the ghost of Fred Astaire floating into Jacoby’s body, we almost want to guarantee at least 3rd place here … and probably higher.
Who do you think clashes the best against some of these other ballroom titans? Be sure to vote in the poll below, and you can check out some more of the latest “Dancing with the Stars” news here.
Photo: ABC