Tonight is the final performance show for this fifth season of Dancing with the Stars, and what a season it has been!

Last week, I presented you with my power rankings for the remaining three celebrity dancers. I ranked Melanie Brown and Maksim Chmerkovskiy as the best pair, followed extremely closely by Helio Castroneves and Julianne Hough. I definitely thought that Marie Osmond and Jonathan Roberts should be placed at the bottom of the pack.

However, these power rankings were based on my opinions of the stars' abilities as dancers, and I did not factor in fan votes. As we've seen all throughout this season, America's votes really do matter. Without them, Mark Cuban wouldn't have lasted for as long as he did and Sabrina Bryan certainly wouldn't have taken a premature leave of absence. But, most relevant right now, with her considerable fan support, Marie Osmond would have been eliminated last week, or the week before, or even sooner.

Marie's fan base is the wildcard here. I think that even though she has been consistently the lowest-scoring and arguably the least nimble of the top five stars, she has been able to ride the overwhelming support of Osmond-lovers everywhere into the Dancing with the Stars finale. At this stage of the game, I wouldn't be surprised if she were to win the whole damn thing. In fact, I'm going to bet that that's exactly what will happen tomorrow night.

Tune into ABC tonight at 8pm for the hour-long final performance show, in which I suspect Marie will again be the lowest scoring dancer. I will be on hand to provide live thoughts throughout the performance, so keep checking back. Then, come back tomorrow night for the two-hour final results show from 9-11pm. Even if I'm completely wrong and Helio or Mel B end up winning the mirror ball trophy instead of Marie, one thing's for sure: there is going to be a lot of filler to pad the two-hour Dancing with the Stars season finale.


-Debbie Chang, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of ABC)