I don’t watch much television anymore. I used to, but as I approached the maximum number of brain cells that I could afford to lose, I backed off. Thursday is my only big day. It has Big Bang Theory (which I watch because it’s the funniest thing on TV since Cheers), Grey’s Anatomy (which I watch because even we old people find sex in a closet amusing), and Scandal (because I really enjoy a good political documentary). Occasionally I’ll watch one of the end-of-year mini-series. Last year Missing with Ashley Judd was appointment television for me.
The only other show that I watch regularly is…shhh…Dancing with the Stars. I know, most adult males wouldn’t admit to watching DWTS if you threatened them with a hot poker in a sensitive orifice, but I love it. It has humor, drama (hey, cut me some slack), entertaining visuals (take that anyway you want), three judges that everyone loves to hate and Cheryl Burke. What else do you need for an evening of entertainment?
The only thing I have an issue with is that sometimes it doesn’t seem like they put a lot of thought into the mix of “Stars”. Now I realize that they’re never going to get George Clooney or the aforementioned Ashley Judd on the show, but Kate Gosselin and Jerry Springer? Come on, you can do better than that.
So that got me thinking. How could they integrate DWTS with the world of fiction (purge that thought; it was beneath you)? I suppose they could do a season with fiction authors, but the problem with that is by the time an author is well known enough to be a star, they’re a little old to be dancing around the stage. That’s not universal of course. I can see Kim Harrison dancing with Derek Hough or Jeffrey Carver tripping across the floor with Kym Johnson, but the list might be too short to fill the dance card.
It’s too bad they couldn’t pair up fictional characters with the dance pros. I can come up with a load of good options there. How about Ethan Sullivan of the Chicagoland Vampire Series doing the Tango with Karina Smirnoff, Anita Blake doing the Paso Doble with Maksim Chmerkovskiy or Sookie Stackhouse dancing the Jive with Mark Ballas?
Obviously, the urban fantasy novels have an edge here, but hard science fiction has talent too. If we’re going to have the token old person on the show, I nominate Heinlein’s Lazarus Long. I think he’s just the guy to glide across the floor with Anna Trebunskaya, mesmerizing us with their rendition of the Viennese waltz. A two thousand years old space captain should set an age record that’ll last for a while.
So here’s my challenge question to all of you. What’s your idea of a dream pairing between a Dancing with the Stars professional dancer and a fictional character? There are no limitations as to genre, but the character has to have appeared in more than one book. We’ll call this Fantasy Dancing with the Stars.
It’s going to be hard figuring out how to translate this into something that ABC can show on television though, so we might actually end up back with the dancer/author scenario. I’d give anything to dance with Cheryl Burke, but I’m not sure how well that would work. I keep conjuring an image of an aging water buffalo with bad knees trying to dance with a beautiful, sleek cheetah. That probably wouldn’t work out well for the water buffalo.
See ya
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