Congrats to Peta and Donald! The NEW DWTS Champs!

Sad for Katherine though.

I think Donald's freestyle probably won it for him as out of all three, I enjoyed his the most last night.

I'm gonna exhaust a couple more conspiracy theories.....

Granted, any of the final 3 had a good chance to win. But did Donald Driver benefit from any of the votes being split? It just never felt like Donald flew under the radar all season long, never getting the top spot, but he wins the final. Did the voters vote for Donald and Peta because Cheryl and Mark already have mulitple titles? Did the two males split enough votes to keep Katherine from winning? Just a few things to consider.

Congradulations to Donald and Peta!
Now...off to console my Cheryl

No great conspiracy . . Donald earned it based on last night and probably having a bigger fan base than Katherine. Plus, I think Peta picked up a lot of new fans for them (and herself down the line) along the way. Besides, it makes more sense to me that any vote splitting would have been between the two guys, not Katherine and William.

I know ABC never reveals the popular vote during the season, because it doesn't want to unduly influence things (Unlike letting competitors go on talk shows--even though all of them may night be able to do so--to drum up support ), But, why couldn't they release the vote after the season? Might be interesting to see how things were trending.

BTW, nice of the judges to (once again) make themselves irrelevant by handing out 25 10's and two 9's over the two nights. That assured (again) that the result would be based solely on viewer votes--which is as it should be.

Katherine still comes out a winner, because she accomplished what I think she set out to do primarily--establish herself in America.

And Donald becomes the third NFLer and seventh sports figure* to win this thing . . I'd call a 50% victory rate pretty significant, wouldn't you?

* Emmitt Smith, Apolo Ono, Helio Castroneves, Kristi Yamaguchi, Shawn Johnson, Hines Ward, Donald Driver

I was thinking about this last week when Maria got eliminated, but I didn't want to open my mouth about it.

It's safe to say that if you are an NFL player & decent enough, you're gonna be there till the end. NFL Monday Night Football, was on ABC Sports once upon a time, now on ESPN, who is partnered with ABC & Disney. Maria Menounos works for Extra which is on NBC, a direct network competitor.

I don't need to say any more...

I always felt that with contests like these, there is a behind the scenes bias that makes an impact. In TV, there is no such thing as honesty!

I don't know if Maria should have won, but I definitely think she deserved to be in the Final 3. The elimination SHOULD HAVE between Donald & William, IMO.

Technically Maria's show Extra! is owned by Warner Bros, and just syndicated to NBC.

If you know the demographics of DWTS viewers, then you can pretty much predict the finalists every year. An NFL player is going to be among them. A guy like Levy will go far just on his looks alone (the female demographics).

Katherine didn't win. How crushing. I thought she was clearly the best, with her only real competition being Maria. I'm glad she beat out William though.

I'm also very happy for Peta. She has become a star now, which is great. Hopefully they'll keep giving her good partners so she can continue to shine as one of the top pros.