Absolutely, Zendaya is going places. She has a raw star quality at such a young age, and as an added bonus, that name is not only known by teenagers in America, but now she's known in every household in the US, it's fantastic. She's going places!

Zendaya will definitely get more roles cos of this

Have to agree with the 2 previous posts

She was highest week one when she did a salsa then fell behind the others. just because you top the scoreboard week one doesn't make you good just means you got a dance that suited you & you are better than the rest in week 1. Penny and Ian topped the leader board on strictly week 1 & I wouldn't say she is a great dancer so I would call her mediocre too.

LOL

Zendaya and Kellie were both very good in different ways. Don't forget Zendaya has been dancing since she was about 8 or so whereas Kellie was coming into the competition with little or no dance background. Zendaya was amazing but I also enjoyed seeing Kellie's progress and development as a dancer and I was happy with either of them winning. I know Derek isn't entirely popular, but he is nevertheless a great choreographer and I agree with those who said it's the freestyle that won the competition for Kellie and Derek.

Actually, I just popped in to say I loved the dance with Dorothy Hamill and Kristi Yamaguchi - it's such a shame that Dorothy had to withdraw early in the series; I had really been looking forward to watching her in DWTS. I know Dorothy danced with Henry rather than Tristram but I was wondering who Kristi's partner was in that dance, please? I didn't see his face well enough to recognise him - although I'm sure I'm going to kick myself when I find out who it was

Kristi danced with Sasha.

I knew I was going to kick myself. Thank you, I appreciate it

I actually disagree. Not only did Zendaya win all the previous twitter votes, such as Homecoming Queen and prior Encore, but if you compared the YouTube views for their dances, in the early weeks of the competition Zendaya's dances sometimes had 2 or even 3 times the views Kellie's did. I noticed about two weeks ago that Kellie sometimes overtook Zendaya in total views, though I made no effort to determine how much earlier that occurred.

The first indication that Kellie's freestyle struck a chord with viewers, and that Kellie might win, was when I saw the YouTube views for Kelly's freestyle on one YT channel were something like 56,000 for Kellie and around 5,000 for Zendaya's freestyle. On Tuesday it was about 109,000 to 13,000. Right now it's 181,479 to 27,022 in Kellie's favor on one YT channel and 107,443 to 24,806 on another.

Zendaya has almost 2 million more twitter followers than Kellie and 1.5 million more than Derek and Kellie combined. Right now, on one channel, the YT views of Zendaya's trio are nearly double those of Kellie's trio: 118,724 to 60,224, while Kellie's Samba has nearly 3 times the views of Zendaya's Paso Doble, 97,247 to 34,894; Kellie's AT has 71,049 to Z's QS (39,909), while Z's Samba has more views at 97,247 than Kellie's Paso, 34,894.

In all of those cases, the views aren't predictable, but seem to depend very much on the particular dance. From the above stats, you could say viewers would rather see a good Samba than a Paso Doble. And I've seen many anecdotal comments saying someone was originally for X, but switched to Y, and Kellie was often mentioned, both ways.

I think the conclusion is inescapable that Zendaya has tons of fans but that viewers were more moved by Kellie's freestyle. Once again the freestyle won the competition.

What nonsense! He has often being told he's broken a rule or not included enough basic content. Did you even see Kellys Paso with Tristan?

Sure, he's had some good partners. But that's because he's popular and the celebrity's demand him. And that's all down to him and him out performing the rest year after year. Besides, at least he takes good partners and does something with them. Look at the likes of Zendaya, Mya, Brandi, Sabrina etc. Not one standout routine between them.

The fact of the matter is he could have been off making a heck of a lot more money in Hollywood for years now but instead has been making DWTS worth watching. It's not a genuine competition. There's no "fair". This is a TV show and it's about entertaining. It's up to the rest of the pros to up there game. Maybe then they will get the good celebrity's instead.

As for the finale, the best performer won. I'm just confused as to who would vote for Jacoby. Thoroughly unlikeable.

last season Shawn and Derek got the most views for their freestyle but Melissa and Tony still won.

Also just because Zendaya had the most twitter followers does not mean she had the bigger fanbase. A lot of her followers are children who do not fit in the DWTS demographic. It's one of the reasons why Disney stars do not win. Kellie's fanbase fits in with this demo.

New York Post article about changes for next season

Bruno [Tonioli] will be back, but Carrie Ann [Inaba] and Len [Goodman] are probably gone.

...according to a "source"

I think there was probably a lot of sentimentality behind Tony's win last season which may have overridden some other factors. Course I'm just guessing. (We're all just guessing ).

btw, if Z's twitter followers don't fit the demographic (and I'm happy to accept that, on the whole, they don't), how come she cornered the tweetathons? They must have been paying some attention, surely. Maybe they just love to tweet and don't vote....

I highly doubt the article is accurate. Changing the judging panel could have dire consequences for ratings.

Shawn and Derek's freestyle--like all their dances--did have many more views. But soooo many people complained Derek already has 3 mirrorballs and poor Tony never had one. There was a big push to vote for Tony because "he was due." And lots of fans said they wanted to see someone win who hadn't won before, so that was another reason to vote for Melissa over Shawn.

To this day there are some who won't vote for anybody Derek is paired with just to punish him.

Now you might be right about young kids not being DWTS core viewers. But DWTS is doing everything they can to appeal to younger viewers. I don't know where Zendaya got all those viewers for her YT videos, but there is no doubt she is a rising star.

ETA: The NY Posted article linked above says, “What made DWTS stand out was that it was always a variety show,” the source notes. “Now it has become just a dancing show.” Really? Seems like it's the other way around.

I thought Melissa's showdance was one of the best and she danced amazingly. After the semi's and during the final she got a huge surge of support cause Kelly was the weakest dancer left and Shawn and Derek got a backlash for ignoring the rules throughout the season and plus Derek had won 3 times before.

Twitter views and Youtube views are really not reliable in the grand scheme of things. You can see IMO who is popular with the younger votes but its the casual votes that nearly always determine the result. Eg, X Factor USA Tate Stevens won over Carly who everyone thought would top the votes and this was simply not the case. Plus on our own X Factor Christopher Maloney topping the vote 7 weeks in a row.

Christopher Maloney is a great example his Youtube views were usually the least watched and he was hated on twitter but he still got to the finals.

I thought the same. Odd thing to write.

As mentioned above it was Sasha Farber memmh - the other Aussie in the troupe - he's a great dancer as is Henry, would love them both to get a chance to be part of the competing pro line up. And yes it was such a shame Dorothy had to withdraw through recurring injury - she looked so promising in her first dance and danced beautifully last night with Henry.

I agree with you about Zendaya and Kellie - I myself was rooting for Zen but I have to admit that Kellie and Dereck pulled it out of the bag with the freestyle.

I've really enjoyed this series - thanks to everyone on this thread for comments and links. I've really enjoyed reading it during the course of the series

I do hope they revamp the show....but worried they will screw it up in the process.

I think that the voting fiasco also hurts Aly the most, she has a lot of kids/teen fans and they mostly vote via email.

Poor girl had to come 4th, SMH.
I know I was annoyed at times with the judges overscoring her but it wasnt really her fault; she really is a lovely girl and was very, very supportive of her castmates; I was really impressed with her sportsmanship throughout this competition, she was the only finalist I think who wished good luck to all the finalists on twitter .She was especially close to Z, that much was evident .
I wish her the very best in life .


Oh and Jacoby what a character ; Loved his personality and his whacky partnership with karina . Im sure he will go on to do great things .

http://omg.yahoo.com/news/dancing-st...200900438.html

Yes, he has been told...and then practically no marks have been deducted because of it!

Derek needs DWTS to keep his profile up. Without the show, he would lose a lot of opportunities.

There has been marks deducted. In the example that was given which was Kellie's paso Len scored them a 7. Carrie Ann only deducts for lifts and that depends on her mood or if its Tony and Bruno is Bruno he never deducts points see Brendan and Kelly's American smooth.

Don't see why Derek needs to stay on DWTS for profile or opportunities as Julianne & Maksim.