‘Dancing with the Stars’: What did we think of Phaedra’s elimination, and who will be out next? [Watch]
Reality TV star Phaedra Parks was eliminated from “Dancing with the Stars” at the end of Tuesday’s “Disney Night,” just as most “DWTS” fans predicted here in our predictions center. So what went wrong for her and her pro partner Val Chmerkovskiy, and who will be on the chopping block at the end of next week’s “Halloween Nightmares”? Gold Derby editor Daniel Montgomery discussed this week’s ouster and what’s to come with contributors Jeffrey Kare and Cordell Martin. Watch above.
“She performed a jazz routine to ‘Cruella de Vil’ that I thought was kind of lacking. Sorry Val — I thought Val’s choreography didn’t really showcase her very much,” argues Montgomery about her first routine of the night, “and then she was sort of the weak link in the team dance at the end of the night … She needed a big breakout moment, and she just didn’t get it, despite the fact that she’s done pretty well over the last few weeks.” That left her at the bottom of the judges’ leaderboard, tied with basketball star Dwight Howard and Olympic gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik, so she needed strong fan support to survive.
“This past Tuesday was Phaedra’s turning point to see if she was going to be a contender or if this was going to be the end of the road,” says Martin. “I think we all kind of predicted just based on the dance style and who’s left in the competition that her time was coming up.” He also believes the professional dancers made a mistake in choreographing the team dance and placing her front and center: “She felt lost a lot throughout the routine.” Kare “thought her performance had some interesting and seductive ideas, but, yeah, she really ran out of steam. She really started to get lost in the shuffle.”
When we polled fans of the show, almost two-thirds of respondents (65.33%) agreed Parks was the right celeb to send home after the “Disney Night” performances, followed by Howard with 23.20% of the vote and a relatively negligible number who would have eliminated one of the other six celebs (scroll down for the complete poll results). But with the show narrowing down to the very best and most popular competitors, there’s little room for error, so who will be out next at the end of “Halloween Nightmares”?
“I think sadly it might be Ilona [Maher], as much as I love her,” Montgomery anticipates. “She hasn’t had her fan base really tested that much. She’s been safe every week, so a certain amount of complacency can set in, and I just don’t know how strong that fan base is compared to the others.” Martin agrees: “I really love her in the ballroom. Her energy, it’s so infectious. But just looking at the rest of the stars that are left, it’s really tough.” But Kare begs to differ. “I’m actually with the Gold Derby consensus here in thinking it will be Dwight,” he says. “He’s been getting weaker and weaker as the season goes on.” That said, “if he knocks it out of the park next week, I can see him winning some support.”
Make or update your own predictions here to let us know who you think will exit the competition next.