Kristi Yamaguchi Takes the Trophy

For the first time since this show's first season one of the "girls" won the coveted mirrorball trophy on "Dancing With The Stars" tonight. Aside from the fact that I personally think Kristi Yamaguchi had an unfair advantage all season because of her experience as a figure skating Olympic Gold Medalist, I have to admit this was one of the most entertaining "Dancing" season finales.

Usher entertained the audience in between all of the excitement with three songs and dance routines that were brilliant; each and every one of the show's cast members returned to do an encore performance - pretty amazing that some of them still remembered the routines or actually practiced again if you ask me. We had the drama of Cristian De La Fuenta's success despite the fact that he had seriously injured his arm a few weeks ago, Cristian place third in the competition and really was down right terrific. There was the humor and entertainment of Steve Guttenberg and Penn Jillette;and the inspiration of the remarkable Marlee Maitlin; to remind us what a sparkling season this has been.

I felt that NFL player Jayson Taylor was every bit as much a winner, because he was unbelievably graceful in every way, all 6 foot 6 inches of him. Kristi had near perfect or perfect scoring all season, but then, she learned all that grace and ability to move during years and years of training to be an Olympic Ice Skating Champion. Ice Skating to me is pretty close to being precision dancing on ice. Different, but close. She was as Jayson said, very deserving. She was about as perfect as could be getting the highest ever score during the finals, a 90. That's three sets of three 10s. It doesn't get any better than that. There was no way anyone could touch her in the judges scoring, but Jayson came close. Besides that, he was wonderfully gracious in defeat and seemed to genuinely be happy for Kristi and enjoy himself . He definitely deserved the perfect score he got for his last dance, an amazing quick step. The man is sexy, hot, gentlemanly and graceful all at once and he didn't start out that way. Ok maybe he was always a sexy gentelman!

The thing I love about this show is that it is almost always uplifting in spirit. There are no sore losers. There is no big cash prize to take home, just a very tacky trophy, but the celebrities all seem to have fun and become seriously competitive with each other while maintaining good will. It almost makes me wish I too was a B level celebrity or almost has been who had the guts to work that hard for weeks on end only to possibly fall on my face in front of millions of viewers. The camaraderie among the cast/competitors seems very genuine.