Last night on the Dancing with the Stars results show, Marie Osmond and Jonathan Roberts were the first couple to find out that they are safe and will continue on to next week's semi-finals. Instead, it was Cameron Mathison and Edyta Sliwinska who were the eighth couple to be eliminated.

Obviously, this means that audience votes are weighed much more heavily than the judges' score, considering that Marie and Jonathan were the lowest-scoring couple of the night

Many speculate that it is Marie's difficult personal life that is keeping her in the game. First her fainting spell on stage on October 22, and then the passing of her father, George Osmond, last Tuesday, perhaps these tragedies are bringing in more votes for Marie than she otherwise would have gotten.

Cameron's ousting created mixed reactions among readers of BuddyTV, but according to our nonscientific poll numbers, 59 percent of over 1300 Dancing with the Stars fans thought that Cameron and Edyta didn't deserve to get the boot, and I am inclined to agree with them.

I do concede that Marie has come very far in the competition. Certainly, it isn't easy to dance when you're in your 40s or and it's probably virtually impossible to find the time to rehearse when you have eight rugrats to take care of. But, it's like if an aging figure skater asks for special permission not to have points deducted if he misses his triple lutz because he's not as spry as he used to be. Or if a geriatric former track star tries to claim that she really beat her whippersnapper competitor in the 800 meters just because she used to be able to run it faster, even though she just got lapped. The Dance doesn't care about your personal life, your age, your level of fitness—The Dance just cares about dance!

I wholeheartedly agree with all the Marie fans who commented on BuddyTV in favor of the quatrogenarian entertainer (for example, BuddyTV users 70squeen, angellover and Osmondfanforlife) who think that Marie has worked very hard to get where she is in the competition, but I think it's time to face the music and admit that it should have been Marie and Jonathan saying goodbye to Dancing with the Stars on Tuesday night instead of Cameron and Edyta.


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