It’s not clear what drives newly awarded Olympian medalists to immediately line up to win a cheesy mirror ball on a reality TV show. Are they that competitive? That worried about the next step in their careers?
This season’s “Dancing with the Stars” is full of such Winter Games heroes.
In Monday’s two hour season premiere, the two ice dancing gold medalists, competing separately, were already at or near the top of the judges’ scoreboard, with one of them, Charlie White, already rocking straight 9s in his score, first time out.
His ice partner Meryl Davis deserved as high a score, but was robbed (with straight 8s instead) for her own dazzling, spin-heavy routine, in which her new partner, the returning Maksim Chmerkovskiy, seemed to struggle to keep up. Cheering was so loud the comments of the first judge were drown out. (Still, Davis was beat the first night by Candace Cameron Bure, of all people, who did a lot of her contemporary routine lying on the floor. )
The Olympian who may surpass all of them in viewer votes, though, is Amy Purdy, who after winning bronze in the Paralympics at Sochi on Friday, flew in to make her mark on the dance floor with Derek Hough, for a routine that was an inspirational triumph in two prosthetic legs.
A lot of the cast members seemed to be doing the show for personal reasons. Nene Leakes wept following her opening dance that scored straight 7s. Drew Carey, perhaps the one recognizable star in the bunch, was celebrating what his body could do after losing so much weight (80 pounds, though it seemed it lost most of it years ago).
After becoming the first person to swim from Florida to Cuba, competing on “Dancing with the Stars” is a definite step down for Diana Nyad, who has a ways to go before becoming a competitive force in dance. But as it was for so many before her, the show seems part of a campaign for her to become something else in the public eye after achieving her dreams in the water.
For others this season, it’s a familiar story, with old sitcom stars angling for relevance in the new century and young teen idols looking for audiences older than 13.
Even so, producers are trying to sow seeds of eventual controversy.
James Maslow of Big Time Rush (a small time kids’ group, believe me) once dated his pro dance partner Peta Murgatroyd, apparently (making for some awkward moments initially).
Jeremy Miller of “Growing Pains” (who is not a contestant) broke up with Candace Cameron Bure of “Full House” so he could date Danica McKeller of “The Wonder Years” (both of whom are on the show and have likely long forgotten the guy who played Ben Seaver).
And they’re trying to coax a scandal between Cody Simpson and his young pro partner Witney Carson, he keeps insisting he has a girlfriend.
Canada’s own Sean Avery is a hockey star who can effortlessly cause his own controversy if need be (they showed a clip of his “sloppy seconds” comment). But he mostly held his own in his clunky debut, in which he did a lot of lifts (but no body checks).
The worst contestant by far is poor Billy Dee Williams, who is 77 and has had two hip replacements. Still there wasn’t much to say about his routine, in which he barely moved. The show seems to sense his stay will be short; they already burned the <em>Star Wars</em> card, dressing him up in Lando Calrissian capes and putting Princess Leia buns on his partner Emma Slater.
The opening show had an odd pacing, thrown off by the start from a thoroughly unnecessary performance and new album plug by Jason DeRulo, meaning to show how hot the show is (it’s not).
Sideline reporter (and season 10 contestant) Erin Andrews proved a huge improvement over Brooke Burke-Charvet as co-host. She kept things moving in the interview room and knew what questions to ask.
Less of a change was seen in the replacement of the band and singers, led now by Ray Chew instead of Harold Wheeler.
There’s a whole complicated voting adjustment that has yet to be fully explained and the end of the night was marred by an unnecessary “surprise” announcement of what dance they’ll all be doing next week.
Well, all of them but one.