Thaindian News

Dancing With The Stars drew to an end with the top three drawing perfect scores. Host Tom Bergeron’s announced that this was their “closest season ever, with less than 1 percent in difference between the final two competitors.” The winner? In the history of the show’s eight seasons, this year saw the youngest competitor Shawn Johnson take home the goodies. It was not exactly a surprise, given how Shawn bounced back from being not-so-good to clinch the title from Gilles Marini, who had raked up all the weekly wins and scored well enough to be the predicted winner.

But once again, as with all reality shows, it became obvious with Shawn’s win that at the end of the day a reality show is a measure of a celebrity’s popularity among the audience, and that matters way more than how well you dance. Gilles was a great dancer, but barring his “naked neighbor” role in Sex and the City, no one knows much about him. On the other hand, Shawn Johnson has Olympic accolades to her name. So when the judges gave her and Gilles equal scores, her higher celebrity status with the audience won the day for her.

There was an hour-long recap of Monday night’s show which was telecast before the two-hour finale episode. The finale included performances by Lady Gaga and the next year’s new pro dancer, Ana Demidova. The hugely popular Shawn went home with her mirror ball trophy to place it with all her Olympic medals.