Dancing with the Stars ended a great sixth season tonight with a two-hour season finale. After last night's final performance show,
Kristi Yamaguchi and
Mark Ballas really pulled away from their competition, dancing a fantastic cha cha cha and a phenomenal freestyle routine and receiving two perfect 30s.
Cristian de la Fuente and
Cheryl Burke trailed in second place with 52 points overall, followed by
Jason Taylor and
Edyta Sliwinska with 51 points.
These scores combined with the audience votes determined which two teams would make it to the final dance-off. Read on to see how the two-hour season finale event transpired.
The team with the lowest combined scores and audience votes was Cristian and Cheryl. They found out early in the evening that they would not be moving forward to the final dance-off. They graciously accepted their defeat and performed their paso doble from week 4.
That meant that Kristi and Mark, and Jason and Edyta faced off one last time, each pair dancing their favorite routine from earlier in the season. Kristi and Mark performed first, dancing their '40s-themed jive from week 6. They had a lot to live up to because back in week 6, they scored a perfect 30. But they had nothing to worry about because they scored another perfect 30 tonight. So, combined with the scores from last night, Kristi and Mark earned an unprecedented 90 out of 90.
Jason and Edyta performed their quickstep from week 2. Watching them tonight, it was quite apparent how much Jason had improved throughout the season. The judges raved over the performance, and Bruno Tonioli even deemed it his best performance yet. The judges awarded Jason and Edya triple 10s for their quickstep tonight, leaving them with a two-night combined score of 81 out of 90.
When combined with the audience votes, however, it was Kristi Yamaguchi and Mark Ballas who prevailed. They were crowned the sixth champions of
Dancing with the Stars, sweet victory, I'm sure, for Mark, who many thought was prematurely eliminated last season.
Of course, all of this only accounted for a few minutes of the two hour broadcast. The rest of the time was filled with previously eliminated contestants gracing the dance floor one last time in the order in which they were eliminated.
Penn Jillette and
Kym Johnson came back to dance their cha cha cha, and
Monica Seles and
Jonathan Roberts danced their mambo,
Steve Guttenberg and
Anna Trebunskaya came back to dance a tango,
Adam Carolla and
Julianne Hough encored their unicycle paso doble.
Priscilla Presley and
Louis van Amstel danced a tango, and
Marlee Matlin and
Fabian Sanchez performed a mambo. Finally,
Shannon Elizabeth and
Derek Hough performed their quickstep,
Mario and
Karina Smirnoff tore it up with a mambo, and
Marissa Jaret Winokur and
Tony Dovolani danced a paso doble.
The evening also featured live musical act Usher, who performed two songs, "Love in this Club" and "Yeah."
The winners of the Ballroom Kids competition was announced as well. Brandon and Brittany were the audience favorites, and
Dancing with the Stars producers invited members of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders to present their trophy to them - Brandon's dream come true.
Read related articles:
Dancing with the Stars Season 6 Results
Photo Gallery: Best and Worst Costumes of the Season
Video Gallery: Five Best Performances of the Season
Video Gallery: Five Worst Performances of the Season
Who is the best celebrity winner of Dancing with the Stars?
-Debbie Chang, BuddyTV Staff Writer
(Image courtesy of ABC)