Who won 'Dancing With the Stars' season 18?
Meryl Davis, the Olympic ice dancer, won "Dancing with the Stars" season 18, pulling in the highest average scores ever on the show.
Over 15 dances, the three regular judges gave the lithe, sweet, incredibly athletic Meryl an average of 28.4, an astoundingly high figure that includes 23 perfect 10 scores from the judges out of a possible 45. (I excluded the scores from the guest judges.)
She also helped Maksim Chmerkovskiy take home his very first mirror-ball trophy. They fended off Derek Hough's partner Amy Purdy, who many other years could have easily taken home the mirror-ball trophy. The Olympian snowboarder with missing lower legs averaged a 27.9 and brought home 16 perfect 10s out of 45.
Hough has won the trophy five times with five different celebrity partners.
In third: "Full House" actress Candace Cameron Bure, who was lucky to just make it to the finals, beating three arguably better dancers by pulling in more viewer votes.
On Twitter, Meryl and Maks were clear favorites to win it all.
Len Goodman, a judge from season one, said this may be his last season. The judge's panel has remained remarkably stable over the past nine years with him, Carrie Ann Inaba and Bruno Tonioli.
The ratings for the show this season was up from a year ago, a consequence of quality, likable dancers across the board. Even though the show is one of the oldest-skewing on broadcast TV (average viewer is about 62 years old), it has been pulling in more 18-49 viewers in recent weeks than beleaguered "American Idol."
On Monday, it easily beat "The Voice" in overall viewers, pulling in 15.7 million vs. 11.6 million. Among 18-49 year olds, "The Voice" did win 3.2 to 2.6.
About the Author
Rodney Ho writes about entertainment for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution including TV, radio, film, comedy and all things in between. A native New Yorker, he has covered education at The Virginian-Pilot, small business for The Wall Street Journal and a host of beats at the AJC over 20-plus years. He loves tennis, pop culture & seeing live events.
