Its Finals Madness with Dancing With The Stars

So we are down to the final three. I called two of them (Evan and Nicole). Erin surprised me. And quite frankly, I'm still not sold on her. The judges love her.. but ultimately its the fans who make the decision.

Now its the first night of finals.

Erin and Maksim lead off the night with their samba. And they are getting help from an orange Bruno. They are getting help from a guy who didn't notice that they turned him into a walking, talking rally pumpkin. And they are mucking about to start off the dance. Not filling me with confidence about this routine. Although Erin says that she wants to go for it with this routine, its kind of a safe dance with some comedy thrown in. And now we have their hairography at the end. Was this better than the last samba from Erin? Yes. But was it a finals level quality samba? Not really, despite the fact that Bruno has the gay man's crush on a leggy blonde! What is up with the scores? 10s from Carrie Ann and Len and a 9 from Bruno? Angrybabybelle cries foul. Of course, the scores in the finals are always inflated.

Evan and Anna drew the second slot. And Len showed up to coach them a bit on the Viennese Waltz. At least he doesn't look orange. This is a good version of the Piano Man that they have. This dance looks a lot better than the first time they did it. They are right on each other like they should be. The problem is that every so often, the hands are whipping around so fast that they threaten to kill one or both of them. The connection though is still not there, but he did improve on making it look less like ballet. Mrs. Angrybell disagrees and things he still looks like a ballet dancer. The judges disagree with the Angrybell family, but Angrybabybelle did enjoy the dance. The judges surprisingly went 28.

Nicole and Derek are in clean up slot tonight. Their redemption dance is the rumba. Carrie Ann dropped by and said a few platitudes. Mrs. Anrgybell wants to know what the costume is, if its just something out of Victoria's Secret with a wrap. The standing split from Nicole got a wow from Mrs. Angrybell. The end move was impressive. Mrs. Angrybell could only say"Core strength... abs of steel." It was improved. I wasn't wild about it but I thought it was done really well. Carrie Ann is nuts with this lift. Derek was right. Once again, I'm with Len on this. Some nice subtle shadings, but some things about it... Argh, can't explain it. And of course, Bruno gushing over the woman. A 28.

Whats going on with this competition. After a round, Erin is in the lead. Whats up with that?

Erin and Maks doing the freestyle to Heart's song. Mrs. Angrybell is laying odds that Maks is going to be shirtless before this is over. Erin is more manly than Maks? What is up with this winging her around in cirlces on to the bed? This bed thing is .. not working. Mrs. Angrybell thinks she is not fluid and sexy. And then towards the end there was a problem with the lift and Maks almost lost her. I just thought it was.. silly. I understand the song, How Do I Get You Alone, but it was.. bleh. Len liked but didn't love it. Bruno called part of it incredible? Whatever. I liked Carrie Ann's comment of "Maks, its not your strength to make your partner look good." The 26 was fair I suppose. But it just did not look polished.

Evan and Anna followed that up with their free style. Watching the practice portion, I want to take Evan and smack him upside the head. He is not the pro. Anna is. Let her do what she does best. She has so far guided him to the finals and at the last minute, he wants to be the honcho for it? Give me a break. Anna, on the other hand needed to be more confident about everything. And they got Footloose. They are hewing a little too close to the movie with their routine. Some of the lifts are impressive, but then there are times when they seems to be looking at each other questioning whether they were in sync and what was going to happen next. Mrs. Angrybell said "It was alright. Didn't not my socks off." Angrybabybell agreed with Carrie Ann. As Mrs. Angrybell says, choreograph is not Anna's strong point. Basically, I think this was Anna doing the same thing wrong that Tony did Stacy Keibler. The final score of 24 was right. Too bad they inflated Erin and Maks score.

Derek and Nicole finished off the night with their freestyle. They lucked out with their son, Little Less Conversation. They were doing so well, then at the end, then it all fell apart with the costume shift. Frankly, I'm disappointed in the choreography. It was clean, but it was conservative. That lift at the end was a mess. The nice thing, they showed a bit of each of the dances that they did through the season. The problem was, it did not tell a story at all. It was just like it was a showcase of steps. They got 9's for a 27.

So where does this leave everything? Evan and Anna dropped the ball big time tonight. They had a chance to threaten Nicole and they blew it. Are Erin and Maks good enough to be in the final two? If you ask me, the answer is no. The freestyle was a mess of Maks tossing Erin about onto a bed.

Looking at consistency, you vote Nicole and Evan, with Nicole coming out ahead. Sorry Erin, I know you have a fan base, but at some point, you have to look at the whole season and your season was not good enough to be in the final two.

The winner of the season should be Nicole. She and Derek have week in, week out shown they are the class of this competition. Evan only gets to second if people remember he was consistently better than Erin. Erin... you got hosed by having Maksim as your partner. Put you with Derek, Jonothan, or Tony, and its likely that you end up in the final two.

Don't let me down America. Let's reward the right people. Nicole should get your votes.