Pod Meets Twirl'd: DWTS 3409

00:00:21
Speaker 1: Welcome to pod meets Twirled, the Dancing with the Stars recap hosted by two guys who can't dance, don't want to dance, and have now seen nine episodes of Dancing with the Stars. But since our best friend Danielle joined the cast for thirty four, we're going all in. We are Wilfred Ell and Ryder Strong aka the two dudes standing next to Topanga aka daniel Fishal's backup aka the dan Yettes.

00:00:46
Speaker 2: Hello Will, Hello Rider.

00:00:49
Speaker 1: How was our first episode with no Danielle?

00:00:54
Speaker 2: It was fine, you know, it's obviously it's it's lost a bit of its allure.

00:00:59
Speaker 1: For me.

00:01:00
Speaker 2: I'm still in on trying to see who's going to win, but I can detach myself from it more. I don't have the same anxiety watching the show. I'm not rooting for it as much as I mean, our friend isn't on it anymore, so it's a little different.

00:01:11
Speaker 1: I had a little interesting journey. I was not looking forward to this. I was really ready. Yeah, I was just like, you know, are we still doing this? Do I care about the show?

00:01:20
Speaker 2: And then you started.

00:01:22
Speaker 1: I think this was my favorite episode of the season.

00:01:24
Speaker 2: Really well, yeah, wow.

00:01:27
Speaker 1: First of all, it gave perspective on the rest on the history of the show, which was so important for me because I've seen nothing and getting a sense of how deep this and how long this show goes, I was like wow, and I really came to appreciate it. I loved the dances. I loved like getting glimpses of the past, past dances and past competitors. I really enjoyed. It was like an education in the history of Dancing with the Stars and I don't know, like yeah, yeah, it gave me a sense of like continuity. It gave me a lot of respect for all the figures of the show, all the judges, like I just I just came to I don't know, you know, it was like a little recap for me. And then I really thought the dancing was incredible this week.

00:02:12
Speaker 2: So yeah, I liked it. I find and again I understand why they're doing this, especially for the twentieth anniversary, but they they really waded into the cheese factor this week. I mean, it was heavy on the cheese this week of just you know, the past and the people we've lost, and I get it. I mean I understand it, but there's a kind of like a self importance to it? Does that make sense? Where it's like, look what we've done in the history of Dancing with the Stars, And I get it, and I know that it's been hugely important. And I loved seeing like young Derek Huff when he started dancing, and then that was incredible, incredible how a baby looked like and then seeing them to get into to lens seat all that, Like those journeys were really really cool to watch, but it was. But I find these same things with a lot of award shows too. It's just it's very melodramatic a lot of times for really not much reason.

00:03:04
Speaker 1: But see, I like that. I guess I like the cheese because here's the thing. None of this matters, right, just like the Oscars. None of this matters. Actually, what we're talking about is a seemingly meaningless thing art, Like you know, it doesn't dance. It is not going to change the world in so many ways. So I find it really nice when show business leans into its importance and says like, hey, actually this is big, a big deal. These are human beings going through this, it matters. I like that because I feel that often and I feel like Hollywood is superficial and gets this rep for being just. But it takes so much work to do these things. It's so much energy. It does take people dedicating their lives to being a host on some random TV show that we're all watching that's getting huge ratings. So I tend to go the opposite. I'm like, because it's so meaningless. There's a need to say, hey, actually, you've been on this journey for a long time. If you're watching this right now, there's a reason you care about this because people have dedicated their lives and their energies towards it and are still doing that. Let's appreciate that for a moment. If it was every week, I agree, But like, you know, one a year, when the Oscars come around, I'm excited. I'm like, yeah, man, let's let's highlight this the effort.

00:04:22
Speaker 2: And you know, because if we don't know, you're not forget the Oscars. You're not highlighting the effort. You're highlighting the people that are there. You're highlighting who what dresses you're wearing, and the four hours on the red carpet. I don't care about self important, but that I don't care about the red cart that you don't. But that's part of the of the night. That's part of the glitter and the glamour that pagenger of and the pageantry. And to me, I've never liked that. I've never been into the pageantry of anything. To me, contententry for pageantry's sake is just like, let's see how big a thing we can produce and make a thing that's kind of important seem like it's really important, Like oh my god, who had the best supporting actor this year in a film they only made twenty million dollars to do? And to me, I'm like, like, I just don't care.

00:05:07
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's the other side of that coin, which is, you know, the sound mixer who has dedicated their entire life has the chance to win an award and get up on stage with their peers and say what I do is important.

00:05:18
Speaker 2: So absolutely a lot of that is not that same night as the actors and everything. It's a night before that isn't even televised.

00:05:24
Speaker 1: Well sure, but you know, I just think that in general, like what the I mean? I agree, Like I don't care about like the Red Car. I never watch any of that stuff, like who are you wearing? But the actual the idea that the industry takes a moment to celebrate. Like for me, the nominees are always the most important part because who gets nominated tends to actually be because they're nominated from within their own discipline, right, So like, sure, you know, actors nominate the actors. Sound mixers nominate the sound mix like those professionals. It's a chance to recognize each other. And I tend to find that the nominees usually I agree with. I'm usually like, those were the best of this year in film, and so I I just think it's a it's an opportunity to recognize, you know, hardworking people.

00:06:10
Speaker 2: No again, I have no problem recognizing hardworking people at all. I think it's amazing. I think recognizing the art is amazing. But I think needless pageantry. It's like Miss Universe. I'm sure all those women have worked very hard to do that pageantry. I don't care. It's to me. I just the the kind of the glitter and glamour of things for the sake of glitter and glamour. Have just and it's a personal thing. Have never done it for me. I find it to be a little bit cheesy. I love the idea that they're doing, like, hey, here's the dancers that were part of the show that we've lost. That's that's important stuff in saying that, but it just yeah, it's.

00:06:47
Speaker 1: Well, in this case, it's not for me. Glitz and glamour is the whole thing.

00:06:50
Speaker 2: It's the show.

00:06:51
Speaker 1: It's part glitz and glamor. I thought, okay, let's get into the opening montage. Was I thought, fantastic, great, a great way to get a glimpse of seasons as. And then this opening dance number incredible, incredible, the Pros dancing. I was just like wow. And then to find out that Derek did the choreography. I was like, oh, that's why he's here.

00:07:11
Speaker 2: I apparently won for Emmys just for choreography.

00:07:15
Speaker 1: This guy, like that was one of the greatest like dance numbers, the best dance number I've seen the Pros do this season.

00:07:22
Speaker 2: I was incredible. Oh yeah.

00:07:24
Speaker 1: And then when they announced that he had done it, you know, and they gave him recognition after the fact, I was like, well, that makes sense why he's in the judge and see he is so good. He is he deserves so much credit because that choreography was astounding.

00:07:36
Speaker 2: And starting with the original dancers. Was was a great way to start because again, we don't know any of these people. We know, we were going in totally cold. So seeing all that, yes, no, I loved all that stuff. I just some of it tonight got it just a little heavy for me for for what it is. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying.

00:07:55
Speaker 1: All right, first dance up Laine and Allen doing a salsa.

00:08:01
Speaker 2: Lots of green, lots of green, lime, green everywhere.

00:08:05
Speaker 1: This had such a nineties vibe to it. Yeah, like Eve with the squiggles and his shirt and like all of Yeah. I thought this was a really good move stylistically for her. I felt like, you know, we've because like the last couple dance, I mean, obviously she didn't dance two weeks ago. Last week was very conservative. I felt a little boring. This was really fun and showed that she can really dance. I was like, yeah, you you are you know. Of course, as the night went on, got blown out of the water by Yeah.

00:08:33
Speaker 2: I thought it was okay. I liked that it was high energy to start, but yeah, I thought the dance was just okay. Frankly, really, yeah, I did I thought it was. I thought that the outfits for a little much for me. Yeah, and again I love the high and it might also be frankly, they they might have been kind of screwed a little bit by coming right off of that giant dance number, Yes, where we just saw these the best, arguably the best dances in the world, doing incredibly choreographed thing.

00:09:02
Speaker 1: So then this dance, which again I thought was okay, well, but something was interesting because they were doing homages to previous dances, right. What that meant is that stylistically, a lot of the dances felt out of touch or like you could you were watching them through the lens of like several years or maybe ten years. And I kind of appreciated that because obviously, like trends change, costumes changed, life and styles change, and like if you're trying, like so much of this show has been trying to be on the cutting edge of culture, like trying to be cool and sexy or classy in a way that is interpreted through the lens of now. Whereas because they were doing homages to ten years ago, twenty years ago, within the last twenty it ended up kind of having like a sort of permission to be a little dated in a fun way. So like this one I was watching. If this had just been presented as like a contemporary, current, cool dance, I was like, eh. But because it was through the lens of word paying homage to a dance from years years ago, and then the whole set in the style felt very dated to me or like hokey in a way, it was fun. It was like, oh cool, we're doing it through, We're in, We're in. We're investing in something that is a little cheesy, but we're just going to go for it because it's, you know, an homage. I like that approach the whole night. It made everything a little easier to swallow from me.

00:10:21
Speaker 2: I thought it was I thought there's an interesting because when we talked to Sharon or last week, it was she talked about how the dances are changing all the time, but at the same time they still have this to have some kind of tether to the original dance. So there's something interesting about that balance of we want to make it look modern, but we still know that it has to be based on something from the eighteen hundreds that that shouldn't change, right. So I dig that and I get that I also think, and this is just my personal opinion, I think personally, Danielle did better several weeks than Elaine has, and so the fact that she's still there and Danielle's gone, I think I'm holding that personally against the Lane, which again is a stupid thing to do. It's not a Lane's fault that people have been voting for her, but I think that's one of the things where I'm kind of like, I still think Danielle was a better dancer than her, So maybe I'm looking for things wrong with it, But I thought that had this exact same dance been done last week or the week before, it would have been four eights.

00:11:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, they got nines across the board. I was definitely like, really, maybe cannbe a little but I think we're at the stage in the competition where es scores are just through the roof.

00:11:29
Speaker 2: I also liked how I did like how they came in high energy and they started high energy you needed to and so it was a good way to start the night, I will say that.

00:11:38
Speaker 1: And then we went on to Robert and Whitney. In their pre show package, he talked about going to some event where Prince William was going to be there, so then he got a call from Prince William.

00:11:50
Speaker 2: Like you do like you do to him yesterday.

00:11:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then they went into their dance, which was an homage to his sister's dance and was very emotional in terms of its background and its meaning.

00:12:07
Speaker 2: I found the dance a look boring. I agree with you one hundred percent, it's good.

00:12:11
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously Robert can dance is great. But I was like, okay, you know, and then you know, when he broke down at the end, I was.

00:12:20
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, it's a little much.

00:12:22
Speaker 1: Now. I know.

00:12:24
Speaker 2: It's a terrible that. It's a terrible thing to say because it's obviously about his family, which is hugely important to him. But this dance ended exactly the way the dedication I ended, except he was holding his sister's hand instead of his mother's hand. Right, He's obviously dancing with the stars Royalty. His father hugely important in his life. Nobody's trying to take anything away from that. He seemed his dad seemed like an amazing guy. Everybody loved him huge in his country. But it doesn't it wasn't just that to me. It's like at the end where he was voted through. He gets this expression on his face and like he jumps like he can't belie leave it happened when he knows he's going to be voted through.

00:13:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, my my, my hot take, which maybe isn't that hot, is that they really want Robert to win.

00:13:10
Speaker 2: Oh, no, everybody wants I think everybody.

00:13:12
Speaker 1: No, I mean the judges, the producer, the show wants Robert to win because this was a straight up nine dance. To me, this was not a ten, and they gave it tens across the board and then later when they do their relay thing, he did not deserve to win that I feel no, I feel like so like this was my first indication. I was like, okay, yeah, like I get your this is there's a great story behind this dance. But let's just look at that dance and when they gave it tens and the comments that they made like he was just the greatest, obviously the greatest dancer that has ever graced us with his presence. I was like, guys, he's already been great.

00:13:48
Speaker 2: He is great.

00:13:49
Speaker 1: You're not holding him to the same standard of like you could do a little bit more, you could push yourself.

00:13:54
Speaker 2: Do you think they're going to give him a note? You think they're ever going to go They didn't give him a note. I have another hot take to add to that, since we're talking about this. I also think because it's ABC and Hulu, they really want to keep Whitney around too, because Whitney is on their biggest thing right now, which is The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. It's like the biggest thing in the network. She got immunity this week from having to dance and got extra points the week before that she.

00:14:19
Speaker 1: Was but he danced this week was insane. It was len dancing tonight though, Oh my god, I mean, I'll go yeah, I like, but I feel like when they gave this all tens, I was like, oh wow, this And I think that they kind of screwed themselves because by giving this tense, they had to give tens across the board because the other dances were genuinely better than this one.

00:14:40
Speaker 2: Oh and Mormon Wives the new season apparently premiered this week.

00:14:44
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I thought Whitney's dance was incredible. It was great, but I think Robert and Whitney here were like good but not tens and so, but I feel like the producers of the show, the judges of the show love him so much. They want him to win. They gave him tens and then because of that, I had to stick with tens. There's so many tens because it was like, right, and we're not.

00:15:08
Speaker 2: Bashing on Robert. He seems like the most likable guy in the world. He's obviously working his butt off. He's very good at what he does. Ye but they clearly want.

00:15:18
Speaker 1: To predestined things he's gonna win.

00:15:20
Speaker 2: Yep.

00:15:25
Speaker 3: We will be taping a live episode of Podmeats World at Disney California Adventure Park on December fourth, twenty twenty five.

00:15:33
Speaker 2: If you live in the Southern California area or if you can be in the Southern California area on December fourth, we have an opportunity for you to join us.

00:15:41
Speaker 3: Between now and November twenty fourth of twenty twenty five, you can enter for your chance to win tickets to attend the Coast one oh three point five Private Holiday Party at Disney California Adventure Park on December fourth, twenty twenty five, including an overnight stay at the Disneyland Resort Hotel well for a family of four and two day one park per day tickets to Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park.

00:16:09
Speaker 1: Plus you'll have the chance to meet us while we're taping an episode of Pod Meets World inside Disney California Adventure Park.

00:16:15
Speaker 2: Visit Coast one three five dot com forward slash Pod Meets World Now to enter for your chance to win.

00:16:30
Speaker 1: All right. Next up we add Andy Richter and Emma Slater doing a quick step. Well, here we are, Andy still in the show.

00:16:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it just.

00:16:40
Speaker 1: Kind of is what it is with an I know, we'll talk about their relay dance later, which I thought was much better than this one.

00:16:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, but again because it's through the.

00:16:50
Speaker 1: Lens of this sort of like self conscious show busy thing putting on the ritz.

00:16:55
Speaker 2: I thought it was fun. It was fun. All of his dances are fun. They're just not pticularly good dances. So it's I mean, she is working her ass off, his partner, he's working his butt off. Nobody nobody is saying he's not. Actually, I would actually say this.

00:17:10
Speaker 1: Might have been one of his best dances. I don't disagree in terms of like his feet doing the things that they needed to do. I was like, oh, I didn't because when he first walked down the steps, I was like, he can't even walk down the stairs. He was walking down the stairs sideways, and you could tell that He's like yes, and so I was like, Oh, this is going to be a disaster, and then it wasn't. It was actually pretty.

00:17:30
Speaker 2: Damn good, and I read looked great. I was like, cool, man, you're doing it.

00:17:36
Speaker 1: I thought maybe he would get more eights than you did, but yeah, eight seven seven seven. My wife was watching and she was like, you know, we could have connected with her more like that. He was kind of doing his own thing and not necessarily connecting.

00:17:51
Speaker 2: I think he's probably trying to remember the dance and counting the steps in his head as she's saying things like six seven eight. I mean, I think he's got nine hundred things going on. It's not effortless right now. And again, I think that's one of the reasons people kept voting for him, is because a they saw there was some progress, and there clearly has been. You go and watch this and you watch his first dance, there has clearly been progress. But it's also the fact that you know he's working his butt off apparently he's a TikTok machine where they're all just putting out these tiktoks all the time, and so he's playing the game. And you know, I don't fault him for it. It's not again, I don't blame any of the dancers. The dancers aren't voting for themselves, right, So, Yeah.

00:18:31
Speaker 1: There was this moment later in the show where Andy talked about what it was like being on the show and how it was like all dancing and all TikTok videos, you know, and he gave him a credit for pushing him in both arenas, and I had this like weird realization. I was like, Oh, this show is now like fifty percent of it is the social media. Yeah, at least and like controlling that narrative and promoting yourself there, which is not part of what like I'm watching right, Like i'm watching this season. I'm looking at just what's on the screen and what's being aired as part of this show. But that's not even really that's half the show. The other half of the show is what these people are doing in social media and how they're forging their narratives and creating those stories. And like Andy has obviously been doing really well at that and apparently Emma is really good at coaching him in that arena as well. So I just thought that was super interesting that we're just at this point where a reality show like this is not just the show, no barely any at all anymore, it's what's going on every week on their social media pages and their TikTok in particular, And I was just like, Wow, this is a it's a weird it's a whole new media jungle out there. Seven completely a part of.

00:19:43
Speaker 2: And I told you, I don't have an Instagram, kind of have a Finsta account that I check occasionally, and I looked at one Dancing with the Stars thing, and now when I look at it, it's nine hundred people talking about Dancing with the Stars, and it's I heard this rumor, I heard that rumor? Or did you hear about this? And then it's the tiktoks that Andy does or the tiktoks that Danielle did. It's part of the job. It is twenty four to seven. Wow, yeah, crazy.

00:20:03
Speaker 1: All right, they got eight seven seven seven.

00:20:06
Speaker 2: I could have seen another eight.

00:20:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. I guess doesn't really matter in the end, but at this point, I was like, Wow, is Andy gonna stick around another week?

00:20:16
Speaker 2: Oh? I thought he was, I thought.

00:20:18
Speaker 1: After the relay, I was like, Oh, the crowd's going to love this, I thought. And we went into an inn memoriam Oscar style, a dance going on in the foreground with some pros while the screen was showing people who had died. I was very relieved to realize that not everyone they were listening had died this year. That took me a moment because at the Oscars it's who died that year, and I was like, wait a minute, Summers was this year and it was the same, and it was like, no, it's just people who have that they've lost in the twenty year history of this show made a lot more sense. I was like, oh my god, what a banner year for deaths. No, not the case. I thought this was really sweet.

00:20:58
Speaker 2: It was sweet.

00:20:59
Speaker 1: After the in memoriam, Dylan and Daniella bringing out the Argentine Tango, my favorite dance, which made a couple appearances tonight. The best yep passo doble kind of took over last week and I was like, oh that one's good.

00:21:18
Speaker 2: No, no, no.

00:21:18
Speaker 1: The Argentine Tango back on top. Just kills.

00:21:23
Speaker 2: These people are so smart to see you mouth everywhere you go. Now, I love it so much. It was great.

00:21:30
Speaker 1: This was insane.

00:21:31
Speaker 2: This was dance of the night for me. They both just crushed it.

00:21:37
Speaker 1: Oh my god, her swimming move at the beginning where he's holding her up, the strength that it takes for him to hold her, and the strength in her body to say, rigid plank like that, why is kicking your legs and make it believable and seamless and just crazy. Oh my god, this was just so fun to watch. It was expressive, It was sexy. The connection is just like brilliant, and like his ability to like be the sort of frame that she's throwing herself around. And of course I still she's the best dancer. I've never she's the best.

00:22:12
Speaker 2: This week she's the best.

00:22:13
Speaker 1: Yes, And like he is rising to like be her partner and god like I and and this is where I felt like they went, oh, we shouldn't have given tens to rush.

00:22:23
Speaker 2: That's because this blew that out of the water.

00:22:27
Speaker 1: There's no way if you give this tens that those were eights like that, This is you know, this deserves eleven.

00:22:33
Speaker 2: Or twenty different level. He also to me, Dylan looked like and I turned to Sue halfway through, I was like, he looks like a thirties movie star. Yes, like he looked like Errol Flynn up there kind of dancing. It was really amazing. I mean, they're both perfectly and I know this isn't right because she's a professional, but both perfectly castes as these two people going on this journey together. It's like you couldn't have put two people together. He no one else could have done for him what she has done for him. Dance once and he has stepped up every and this was the first time. I was like, oh, they both looked like pros. They fully both looked like pros. Tonight, Yeah, dance of the night for me. He crushed it.

00:23:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was incredible. So yeah, ten ten, ten ten, well deserved. Hell yah, man, I hope these guys make it to the finale.

00:23:16
Speaker 2: It's but do you have competition anybody can beat Robert? No? I don't either. I think it's already been progestined.

00:23:24
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean I think that the show itself is really making it hard for anybody to beat Robert, which I mean, I'm so curious what the what the audience votes are, because I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a little bit of backlash to that, because it starts to feel like, oh, well, he's the obvious, and then people will stop voting for him just because they assume that he's getting all the votes, and that might you know, that might be somebody else.

00:23:49
Speaker 2: I agree. And I was back east. Both Susan and I were back east last week, and she was in Massachusetts. I was in Connecticut, where both of their families, and then we met up in the middle and wherever we went, we were talking about Dancing with the Stars, and just for the heck of it, I would start talking about Dancing with the Stars with the waiters or the weight staff or somebody who worked at a place wherever we were. I think of maybe the five people, six people I talked to, four of them watched the show regularly. All of them were voting for Robert. Wow. Every single girls, boys, different ages, all of them are like, oh my gosh, I can't I vote for Robert. Every week, every single person was voting for Robert Wow.

00:24:30
Speaker 1: Okay, it's crazy crazy, then he probably will win.

00:24:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy, all right.

00:24:35
Speaker 1: Next up, we had Jordan and Ezra doing the Cha cha. You know, I feel like she is in a tough position because she is doing so well, she is committing so hard, but I just don't feel like she's getting the support for the same you know, in the same way. But I thought, you know, their whole goal they talk about in the pre show was to try and be sexy and passionate in a way that she hasn't been able to showcase.

00:25:00
Speaker 2: And I thought she nailed it. I thought so too, frankly. And it was cool. It was a cool dance.

00:25:04
Speaker 1: And I really appreciated Derek's feedback because what he was saying was like, we know you can do the athleticism, We know you can do the big moves, but what your what your journey and your growth has been is in texture and the way that you're learning to express things with your body. And I felt that and it was exactly what I was. I hadn't I couldn't put it into words, and he put it into words. And I'm so glad he gave her a ten because I thought that if we're going to reward people for their personal journeys, if we're going to be giving Andy an eight in a situation where he's clearly never going to be more than a six or seven. Then somebody like Jordan who is athletically move wise doing tens, but also growing emotionally and expressively in ways that is not super easy for her, comfortable for her or immediate, we should reward that too. This is this is her journey and so and the point.

00:25:57
Speaker 2: You were making before, were you and I not fully disagree. I kind of agree about the pageantry a little bit, but you know me with the kind of stuff. But this was one of those times too, where you saw how important Dancing with the Stars was to her because in her preshow package she's talking about like as a kid, all she wanted to do was learn every Dancing with the Stars dance. Here's a girl who from the time or a woman now, but when she was a girl was probably already a top athlete at seven eight years old, but she wanted to come home and do the dances with Dancing with the Stars. So I get the importance of the show. I really do. It's just for me, it's a little much, but I can see how for someone like her it's the equivalent literally of I played little league. I'm always saying, oh, I mean my backyard holding a bat going it's bottom of the ninth, there's two outs. It's on me. This is her world series. She's been doing this since she was a little kid, and now you're on the biggest stage on Dancing with the Stars. You've made it and you're trying to get as far as you can't. I totally get that, and I get the journey, and I get the importance. I just it's a little much for me, but I get it all right.

00:27:07
Speaker 1: They got nine, ten, nine and nine, which.

00:27:12
Speaker 3: I guess it was.

00:27:13
Speaker 2: I could have seen two tens and two.

00:27:15
Speaker 1: I was gonna say another ten felt deserved in this case. I could have seen I could have seen Bruno giving her how interesting. I was glad that they highlighted how they have to mark their scores before they speak the judges. I thought that was really because I wasn't quite clear on that.

00:27:31
Speaker 2: Oh remember did you hear early ones where they're like, remember we were at the show, the first show, and they're like, lock it in, lock it in. I the one person.

00:27:37
Speaker 1: Hadn't locked it in, I think, or Bruno hadn't locked it. Yes, I but it was really cool to because I started to think, like, aren't they influencing each other in their comments? And it's really nice to know that's not the case, that they're actually defending their scores or explaining their scores before those scores are revealed. Actually, that's what the judging is an opportunity to or an opportunity for. And it was also I loved hearing we'll get into later when they do the flashbacks and they were talking about the judges in their role. I loved hearing how Derek still thinks of it as a teaching opportunity, right. He was like, you go from coaching somebody all season and having hours during their dance to only having.

00:28:18
Speaker 2: Thirty seconds to give feedback and teach them.

00:28:20
Speaker 1: I was like, that's so cool that he's looking at this as a teaching opportunity and a and he's he's so good. Man. Well that's why my respect for derekof too just started to take him for granted. You know, I've always appreciated his comments, but I didn't know the history. I hadn't seen the history, lived the history, and man, tonight really like.

00:28:39
Speaker 2: To talk to him about his journey. But this is you mentioned the scoring, so this is kind of an interesting time to talk about this. So Sasha Farber, who was one of the original maybe not one of the ogs, but for years was one of the professional dancers. He did a live reddit last week where he kind of gets into the scoring system because we keep going back back and forth on what the hell the scoring is. So I'm going to read a little bit of what was said and see if we can try to decipher any of it, because a lot of it is very confusing. So it said after Bobby Bones, who was we talked with Sharna that was her partner who they won the whole thing and maybe shouldn't have. They talked about how that kind of changed the ranking system. So if there are five contestants, you get one to five points based on where you're placed on the judge's score, and then one to five based on where you sit ranking based on ranking with the votes, and then they combine the two so it's not a percentage system. So then somebody else explained it how this is how the scoring system in the German version works, and they think that this is the same, but they show it on a leaderboard. For example, five couples are left in the show. Couple one has thirty thirty jury points, or the highest score of five points they would get ranking Couple two is twenty eight points, so they get four points, and so on and so on. So where you rank on the leader board, you either get a five, four, three, two one, and then they do the same thing for percentage of votes that people call in, so you're five fourths. So if you get the highest judge of scores, you get a five, and then you get the highest calling scores, you get a five. So your ten gets you through to the next week. Is I believe how they do it all. It sounds it's confusing as hell, but I believe that's what they're doing.

00:30:26
Speaker 1: No, that actually it's it's a way to really boil it down to like simple numbers, you know, so really quick quick adding numbers. That makes sense, actually, okay.

00:30:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, And by the way, because we talk about this is a big week because Andy left and they were calling him the Bobby Bones of this season, and apparently you and I just heard from one of our producers as we came on that yesterday he came out saying he returned his mirror ball to ABC because of all the hate he was getting from winning the show.

00:30:57
Speaker 1: Which is kind of a strange move, Like, agreed, why not just say okay, but that was you know, he won fair and square by the rules that they said. Yeah, I wouldn't feel the need to give that back, but.

00:31:08
Speaker 2: Again, he's not voting for himself A million times other people are voting for him. I agree with you one hundred percent. I wouldn't have given it.

00:31:15
Speaker 1: Back, but apparently, like you know, I get it, like it's but yeah, you want it fair and square, man.

00:31:22
Speaker 2: You know, I also don't get people going out of their way to give a former Dancing with the Stars champion hate for winning a show he doesn't vote for himself on Yeah, it seems.

00:31:32
Speaker 1: Well, but I guess he was promoting it a bunch on his own radio show or something like that.

00:31:36
Speaker 2: But isn't everybody doing that with all the tickets whatever, you go, whatever you got, that's like your platform promoting ourselves. So yes, but that was the news apparently.

00:31:59
Speaker 1: All right. Next up Alex and Val doing the Fox trot to sing it in the rain. I thought this was subdued and classy and freaking awesome.

00:32:10
Speaker 2: A thousand percent agree with.

00:32:12
Speaker 1: You, right, Like I love the old Hollywood sort of vibe. Dressed dude, just such a cool move man, like, because these two can do anything, like they've clearly done so many different styles and energies, and to do this was just perfect. It was like wow, and again I'm going you guys screwed yourselves with those Robert scores because.

00:32:35
Speaker 2: They had to give this tense like you can't.

00:32:37
Speaker 1: It doesn't compare once you had locked in tents for Robert, it was going to be so high across the board just to compare, because this was so much better, so much.

00:32:46
Speaker 2: So classy and just elegant, and they were gliding through it. This to me is like old school ballroom dance, you know, just watching that with the beautiful outfits. They both looked gorgeous. They were staring at each other with big smiles on their I could watch this all day.

00:33:02
Speaker 1: It was great, right, and again it wasn't like cutting edge in terms of like current culture. It was it was referential to old culture yea and like and really just investing in something that is dated intentionally to say like we're gonna we're gonna really go back in time and and and do something that wouldn't be considered maybe cool today, but make it cool again.

00:33:24
Speaker 2: I love that too. All this all this fusion food is amazing, but if you can just make a classic souflet, Yeah, there's something about that that's amazing. Yeah. So yeah, I loved it. I think they look great together. Again, they could ease, they could win. Maybe it's maybe it's in any other year they would win because it does seem like they're just gonna give it to Robert. But there's three or four couples that could easily win this show or should have a chance at winning the show. And yeah, there are definitely two of them, because man, can they dance. And I would say just from watching next to your favorite dancer, Danielle. Next to Danielle, I think Val is probably the next best dancer on the floor.

00:34:03
Speaker 1: Yes, and an amazing choreographer. C Yeah, he kind of knows it too. Yeah, you get that vibe from him, right.

00:34:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. We didn't talk about he actually have.

00:34:13
Speaker 1: Had a very humble speech about being an immigrant.

00:34:16
Speaker 2: He loves it, he loves what he does. But the one thing we didn't talk about was the very opening move of Dylan and Daniella, where Dylan's got his leg up and she just comes in and pops under his leg that. Oh it was so like a dart. Yes, so cool. Yeah, just set the toe for everything. Yeah all right, Alex and Bal got tents across the board.

00:34:37
Speaker 1: Well, so yep, deservedly so next up Whitney and Mark and the Argentinian.

00:34:42
Speaker 2: Tago stakes again, right, are so happy perfect.

00:34:47
Speaker 1: It's just it's I mean, it was Danielle's breakthrough dance.

00:34:50
Speaker 2: I just feel like this is everybody's breakthrough dance. You do tago, Well, it's you're moving your legs and their legs are going up underneath other that's so cool.

00:35:00
Speaker 1: You get all those little flicks and weird kids, so you're just like what you just can't take.

00:35:04
Speaker 2: Your eyes off of it. And yet it's so like just expressive. Oh man, totally.

00:35:10
Speaker 1: So this was insane to me. And yes, like I think this was her best dance ever. Yeah. And they just they're they're so great man. I love both of them. I Yeah, this was incredible to watch. And it was at this point I was like, dude, if they don't give them tens, I'm gonna be pissed. Yeah, And there was a moment where I was like, are they not going to do it. Are they going to somebody going to give her a nine and no tends a gross.

00:35:37
Speaker 2: The board had to be had. You're right, they said they set the standard a little high at the beginning, and then you kind of had to go from there.

00:35:45
Speaker 1: Because I had to do it.

00:35:46
Speaker 2: That was It was really remark There were three or four dances tonight that were really remarkable. I still think Dylan and Daniella was dancing the night though, personally, So.

00:35:54
Speaker 1: This is going to be I mean, really, if we just take the tens, it's Robert, Dylan and Alex and Whitney.

00:36:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's going to be the top four.

00:36:04
Speaker 1: And I think that's it's just inevitable at this point, Like, yeah, at this point in the night, I was going, man, it could Andy could sort of eke out and stick around, in which case I was going to say, a Land's probably going home.

00:36:16
Speaker 2: That's what I thought was gonna happen.

00:36:17
Speaker 1: It didn't happen that way, and so now I'm like, Okay, well now it's just going to be dancing.

00:36:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's going to come down to.

00:36:24
Speaker 1: The people that got the top top scores this week, and I truly just waiting for that to happen.

00:36:29
Speaker 2: Andy was probably slightly disappointed, but I think he had such a fun time, got farther than he ever thought, and we probably walked away going like that was amazing. I'm good and I'm glad that I'm glad he stayed, and I'm also glad he's gone. Now. I think it was time and you can now get to the The cream is really rising to the top at this point, I mean, there's it's amazing, and.

00:36:50
Speaker 1: We went into flashbacks two seasons past.

00:36:53
Speaker 2: Wait before I'm sorry, Oh yeah, I apologize to our our faithful listeners because I was so upset with daniell exit last week that many people pointed out that I did not do Will's History of Dance. So I'm going to do an in memorium Daniel Fischle dancing to Will's History of Dance, which was Daniel's last dance was the contemporary dance and so for people out there, because as you know, writer, I have an encyclopedic knowledge of all things dance. We've established this at this point, does it It didn't.

00:37:20
Speaker 1: Matter with contemporary to have an encyclopedic knowledge.

00:37:23
Speaker 2: It matters an encyclopedic knowledge. It's an expressive and versatile dance genre that emerged from modern dance, combining elements of various styles ballet, jazz, and modern to create innovative and creative movements. I love how to describe a contemporary dance. They describe it as or I mean, I in my head with my knowledge, describe it as a modern dance. So best way to describe.

00:37:47
Speaker 1: Contemporary modern Yeah, kind of anything.

00:37:51
Speaker 2: Kind of redundant, but it's a slow dance that isn't quick.

00:37:57
Speaker 1: And then we went into flashbacks of seasons back and profiles of the judges, with a nod to Len Goodman, who I gather was one of the original judges and a legend who has now passed. Like I said earlier, I thought this was really cool. This gave me so much appreciation for all the judges. You know, I feel like we've you know, we've we've we've come, we've come at Carrie Anne a little hard we have, which sounds like a lot of people are ye, and uh, this gave me another more appreciation for how much she's brought to the show, all of them. I was just like, oh, this is a really interesting job. These people, you know, they're they're up against it. In a lot of ways. And then yeah, just seeing Derek when he was like fifteen or whatever, he.

00:38:41
Speaker 2: Looked like baby. It was unbelievable to see him out there.

00:38:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, and on top of his choreography for the opening number. I just my respect for him.

00:38:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we got to see if he'll come on to Podmeets World. I know he's we love to have him, And by that, I mean he's probably never heard of us. There has no idea that we're doing this, but I think both he having he and sister on because the perspective of both sides would be very interesting. Of hosting a live show like this every week, but also dancing. I mean we've she danced that opening number and is sitting there huffing and puffing trying to get through. Now oh wait, now I'm a host, so difficult for both of them. We did come at carry in kind of hard. I think rightfully so at the time, but that's also anytime you put yourself out there nowadays, if you say up, then everyone who likes down hates you. It's just the way the world works. She handled it with total class, like she did, and I think I think all of her scoring and all of the judges scoring except for Robert this week, and I could see why they wanted to give him high scores. I think was pretty spot on.

00:39:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. Then we do this relay section, which I wasn't quite clear on what this was, and then again felt kind of rigged, you know, like because who they were partnered or who they were versus seemed like a big deal, you know, like that kind of determines like so the and then also the mirror ball passed mirror ball winners who they were dancing with, Like with Jordan, she got another other big guy, Apollo, who hadn't danced in thirteen years. Yeah, Whereas when it came for Alex and Robert the last set of relay, she was like last year's winners, both of them got the most recent winners.

00:40:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I was like, that's a stacked deck. Yeah, that's total.

00:40:24
Speaker 1: They were giving Robert and Alex a huge leg up on everybody else. Yeah.

00:40:29
Speaker 2: Kind of pissed me off. Man, I don't disagree with you. I have not liked most of these side little sojourns that they're taking. It seems a little strang It seems like a way to stack the deck of riggan again to boost who you want and yeah, exactly, Whitney had community got two extra points. She won the dance off the week before it. They it's an easy way to kind of figure out next steps.

00:40:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it was Jordan versus a lame Jordan one. I thought that was kind of an obvious me too. When you compared the two dances as good as Elaine was, it was like, no, but it was cool to see how how well they worked with another partner. I did like that factor of this whole thing, you know that they you got to see like these people have to adjust, and during the pre dance packages, I was like, oh God, this is going to be a disaster, and it wasn't. Pretty much across the board, it was solid. People were agree and those now those people who admitted that they hadn't danced in years really brought it. And you were like, oh, I could see why you won, and made.

00:41:29
Speaker 2: Me kind of wish I could retool all of Dancing with the Stars. Yeah, because if I could retool all of Dancing with the Stars, it would be two celebrities who have to learn how to dance together. The pro is teaching them how to dance. Every week, But the actual dances every week are two different celebrities, double the amount of celebrities that are there, first of all, and you're watching everybody kind of on equal footing. And so you've got you know, it's a celebrity of celebrity, and then you get your professional who trained you every week. Wow, So you can never have somebody standing there while a professional dances around you. It's always the two of you together learning.

00:42:07
Speaker 1: I wonder if that would just result in worst dances though, you know what I mean, of.

00:42:10
Speaker 2: Course, But that's I mean because you don't get to see professionals dancing all over the place. But to me, that would be a really interesting Maybe do a season like that. Do one season where all the professionals do all the interstitial dances and they train you all week long, but on the floor it's just the two of you together.

00:42:28
Speaker 1: I like that all right. Then we had Andy versus Dylan. It seemed like a foregone conclusion that Dylan would win, which he did, of course, but Andy had this shirt moment, which didn't we make this very joke. I feel like we made this exact joke that we were like, will you'd rip your shirt over and you'd have one of those muscle shirts under it. We made that joke and then they did it, and his commitment to it. At this point I was like, you know what, I don't know. I think Andy. I'm okay with Andy sticking around another week because it was commitment, good dancing actually yeah, it wasn't bad. Some of his best dancing. Yeah, and funny, entertaining, I mean, all the things that we wanted to be. And it reminded me of of what we talked about with you, is like, you would be best if you entered Dancing with the Stars thinking of it as a character, thinking of it as like a joke, as a as a as a comedy bit. You would end up committing more physically than if you felt the pressure to like actually be sexy or you know. And I felt like Andy came alive in the same vein when he was like, I know this joke is coming and this I'm gonna play, and yet he physically ended up committing more than he ever has.

00:43:36
Speaker 2: It was really cool. See, it was a good moment. It really was a good moment.

00:43:39
Speaker 1: I was also watching Rumor Willis and the rehearsals going. She won What's happening here? Is she any good?

00:43:46
Speaker 2: And then when she came out, she was amazing. Ye. Together they were so good.

00:43:52
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, it's not just Daniella bringing up Dylan, you know, like he's really working well with another partner who's also amazing.

00:44:02
Speaker 2: Really incredibly well together. But that's what I mean, two celebrities together, it could work.

00:44:07
Speaker 1: Could be could really be great.

00:44:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:44:09
Speaker 1: So yeah, Dylan won this face off. Why these face offs become these face offs again? I just don't understand. And we ended with Alex and Robert, and this is where they got the like the most recent dancers. They got pros who are like fresh off of winning the Mirror Ball. Their dances were really good. I thought Alex's was insanely good.

00:44:31
Speaker 2: I thought it was better than Robert's. Yes, that was the only one I thought they got wrong. But that's the thing. They want Robert to win. Yes, And I'm about the fact that he kicks her in the face. Did you see that in the back of I mean he literally kicks her.

00:44:43
Speaker 1: In with that final move where he's like slamming her to the ground, almost flipping her over and jumping back up. I was like, what, this is crazy? And you know, you see it rehearsals and you see how crazy it is, and then they nailed it. Man, they really got the think.

00:45:00
Speaker 2: They got the wrong one here. I also think, and I think you said this before. You may have changed your tune. I don't know, but I was the entire night of watching. I think the jive is my least favorite dance. It's just it's not it's I prefer the holding onto each other, classical kind of dance with some moves in between, the kind of jive of the quick step in them side by side. It's not my f And so that threw me a bit because it just isn't my favorite dance. But I thought this was the only one that they got wrong. I thought that Alex deserved to win this round.

00:45:30
Speaker 1: Frankly, yep, yep. I think most people felt that way. Yeah, all right, and that was, uh, that was it for the dancing. Then we just had the uh, the results. I really was a shocked.

00:45:44
Speaker 2: I was shocked. Absolutely. I thought I thought the fandi's are coming out and it was becoming a thing, and they just were going to keep him on. I didn't think he was gonna win. I didn't think anybody was gonna beat Robert, but I thought he was going to be make it to the finals. Wow, So the idea I was. I was convinced after starting the show and the low scores that Elaine that this was going to be Elaine's last week of dancing.

00:46:07
Speaker 1: Well it will be next week, yeah, probably, that's what we're looking at. Or when you have people with all ten, Yeah, it's gonna be Jordan and Lane dropping off, which is too bad because they both have great journeys. They do incredibly well. And they said it in this episode, and I've heard it a lot that this season is insane, yeah, stacked, snacky, ye, And I think in any other season Jordan and Lane would have a genuine shot from what I gather at winning.

00:46:35
Speaker 2: But as with Danielle, that's what daniel we're talking about kill.

00:46:40
Speaker 1: I know you've got When you have Robert and Alex and Whitney and now even Dylan, you're just talking about people that are taking it to this next level.

00:46:49
Speaker 2: But that's why I hope somebody like Dylan or Robert wins, simply because these were two guys. And again, you're probably right that Robert has been training to be on Dancing with the Stars his entire life because he knew we wanted to be here and it's his family legacy kind of thing. But somebody like Dylan from where he was to where he is now, to me, represents the show exactly, perfectly represents the show. Whereas Hey Whitney, the girl who grew up dancing, who went to school for dancing, whose dancer whole life and is now professional TikTok dancer wins a dancing competition, that's not a headline to me at all. Dylan Ephron comes out and wins. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, and you're right that dance. Just the move. It's a poster of him holding her in the plank position with the light behind them. I mean that is going to be on some kid's wall who wants to grow up and be a dancer. That's like, that's Michael Jordan dunking on you in the dance competition. I mean it was. That was insane. All right.

00:47:46
Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of Pod meets Twirld. Join us next week as we continue watching season thirty four of Dancing with the Stars. We may not know a salsa from a jar of salsa, but we know what we learned way back in Phoe' class. Daniel Fischele was the star of the show. Podmeats World is an iHeart podcast producer hosted by Daniel Fischle, Wilfridell and Ryder Strong executive producers, Jensen Karp and Amy Sugarman. Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor, Tara Subasch producer, Mattie Moore, engineer and Boy Meets World superman Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at Podmets World Show or email us at Podmeats World Show at gmail dot com.