'Fessing
Up
Wednesday, November 28,
2007 (posted 12/1/07)
Okay, it is time for me to
come clean. While I am snob enough to be pleased to say I watch very little
TV, I have to confess that the TV I do watch tends to be very low-brow
indeed. I used to watch what we called "educational TV" whether it be
PBS or the History Channel. I don't have time for that now.
I get my news and information from the local newspaper and
the Internet. I hardly ever watch a whole show on TV, at
least not all at one sitting. Since the invention of the digital
video recorder, I rarely watch anything in "real time" either. We
record the shows we want to watch and then fast forward through the
commercials and the boring parts.
DH records and watches virtually all
sports, especially all car racing events, as well as all 87
CSI shows aired during any given week; I am usually in the room when he
watches all of that. I, on the other hand, watch only one show. I can't help it. I love
"Dancing with the Stars."
This year I was excited to learn
that Helio Castroneves was to be one of the "stars". He and
Tony Kanaan are my favorite IRL drivers. I couldn't wait to
see him dance although I wasn't expecting much. I was as blown away
as the rest of America by what I witnessed during the last few weeks. I
actually voted for the first time ever, the first week, anyway.
After that, I tended to record the Monday night show
and watch it (fast forwarding through the commercials, all the chit-chat,
the "special guests" and Jimmy Kimmell -- who and what is a
Jimmy Kimmel, anyway?????) on Tuesday before the results show. That
meant I didn't have an opportunity to vote again. I guess
Helio and Julianne didn't need my vote anyway.
I have always loved to watch people dance, whether it be ballet, song and dance production
numbers, modern or ballroom. I love to watch the
ballroom competitions on PBS. There is something wonderful about watching people dance. They always strike
me as being so happy while they are dancing. More than any of
the performing arts dancing often expresses raw joy -- even sometimes when
the dance itself is not particularly joyful.
There is something uplifting and inspiring about watching strong, beautiful people move to
music.
"Dancing With The Stars" takes that to a new
level. On the one hand there are the professionals who make
it look so easy and whose exhibition dances often leave me
breathless. On the other, there are the collection of "stars"
(many of them being utterly unknown to me) who push themselves to
new levels of accomplishment week after week. Their joy in
that is palpable even through the TV! What is more,
there is no fighting or drama. It seems that (with few exceptions)
the contestants (who aren't doing it for money or for
career advancement) encourage and cheer one another on. The professional dancers
have often commented about the things they have learned
fromt their students. The students gush about how they have been changed by
the experience. Even the judges give constructive criticism most of the time
and give every appearance of encouraging each contestant to improve each week.
In other words, it's a TV show
about people laboring together to make something beautiful, and growing in the
process.
Yes, all that
is buried in layers of TV-land crap: announcers who talk too much,
dreadful "guest" singers (no more Celine Dion - ever, please!)..... and
the afore-mentioned comedy (?) shtich. I fast-forward through all
that. I only watch the dancing part, and I do listen to what the
judges say. (FWIW, I usually agree with them.)
This year was
especially wonderful because all three of the pairs of finalists gave
every appearance of having the time of their lives. There is something
wonderful about watching people doing something they love, something
they are good at ... and loving every minute of
it.
"Dancing With
the Stars" is fun to watch only partly for the dancing (as wonderful as
that often is). It's fun to watch people working so hard and having such
a blast doing it. It was so obvious this year's finalists were
having so much fun, I had fun, too, just watching them.
I can't wait
until next year!