Helio Castroneves wins Season 5 of Dancing With The Stars

After several long weeks, we finally reached the finale for season 5 of Dancing With The Stars. As always, the show began with a recap of the performances of the previous evening. After the recap we get one of Samantha’s probing behind the scenes interviews, asking the celebrities what they are going to miss most. Marie jokingly said the spray tanning. Mel said the crew. Helio, ever the gentleman, said Julianne. Tom Bergeron reminds us the order of the couples: Mel and Maks; Helio and Julianne; and Marie and Jonathan.

Surprising to me, musical guest Celine Dion performed very early in the evening. Professionals Alec and Edyta, Mark and Cheryl, Karina and Tony, did a beautiful Rumba to Celine’s “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic. Karina’s costume was absolutely stunning. I was not surprised that Celine performed, I was just surprised when she did her first song. OK, I am complaining now, but weren’t we promised that the third place couple would be announced at the very beginning of the show? I did not expect to see the special musical guest’s performance before the first elimination.

After what has seemed like forever, we find out that Marie and Jonathan were in third place and would be leaving the competition. I was surprised, because I did not think she would win but I thought that her fan base would have put her in second place. I know for a fact that many people on Yahoo Answers will be thrilled because there had been some really scathing commentary about Marie on that site. Hopefully these people will ease up on her a bit and recognize what she did accomplish. She has to be the oldest celebrity to ever make it this far. Good for her. They did get to perform a “farewell dance” - their favorite dance (according to the hosts), the Tango.

The parade of eliminated celebrities began with Alec and Josie Maran performing their Foxtrot. Now I was kind of surprised to see them do the whole dance, because in finales past we just saw a few seconds of each dance. Silly me said to myself how are they going to fit this all in an hour show? And then I hit the info button on my remote to find out the show was two hours in length. It’s nice to see the celebrities return, but enough already. I want to see Mel and Helio dance.

Celine Dion performed her new song “Taking Chances” later in the show with some of the “emotional highlights” of the season. Huh? Isn’t that what we just spent the last hour and sixteen minutes watching?

Finally at 10:27 pm the remaining two couples begin performing their final dance for the judges. Up first: Mel and Maks, performing the Mambo. Their performance was good and the judges were really positive in their comments to Mel about the routine and about her performance overall this season. They got a perfect score of 30 for their performance.

Helio and Julianne performed their Quickstep this evening as their favorite dance from the season. I thought it was every bit as good as the first time they performed it. The judges also liked the performance, giving them a perfect score of 30 as well.

After the performance for the judges, Mel and Maks had an 85/90 while Julianne and Helio had a score of 84/90.

Drum roll please……the winner of season 5 of Dancing With The Stars, claiming bragging rights as champion and joining an elite group that includes Kelly Monaco, Drew Lachey, Emmett Smith and Apolo Anton Ohno – Helio Castroneves.

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